


Metamorphosis (2/2)

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-07-10
Updated: 2001-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-20 14:02:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 59,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11336976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	Metamorphosis (2/2)

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

Metamorphosis by Morticia

"He's completely falling apart. You're allowing them to destroy him," Palmer said, trying to keep all emotion from his voice.

"Our mutual acquaintances are extremely satisfied with his new attitude," Spender replied crushingly. "It is highly unlikely that he will ever become a thorn in our sides again."

"So you have given up on the idea of using him to control his 'Dom?'" Palmer asked.

"What do you mean?" Spender asked.

"It is unlikely that he will survive another week," Palmer replied coldly. "So I assume his usefulness is over and you have decided to kill him instead."

There was silence on the end of the phone. Palmer felt his palms beginning to sweat as he waited for Spender to reply.

"I gave explicit instructions that he was not to be permanently harmed," Spender finally said.

Relief made Palmer almost drop the handset. He couldn't afford to seem personally concerned, but he had been unable to stand by any longer. He had taken a gamble on the fact that Spender didn't really want to kill Fox, and it seemed to be paying off.

"It isn't just the beatings, although they are possibly more severe than you intended to allow," Palmer said carefully. "The problem is that he isn't eating, he's drinking too much, and he's so emaciated that his body is susceptible to any and all infections. He has developed a rasping cough that indicates the early signs of pneumonia. To put it bluntly, he is incapable of looking after himself any more, Sir."

"He's having a breakdown, you mean?" Spender asked.

"He is so far PAST a nervous breakdown, that it is a miracle he can function at all, Sir. If he walked into my surgery off the street, I would have him committed before the ink dried on the admission form."

"I'll deal with it," Spender replied and hung up, leaving Palmer uncertain whether he had helped Fox or thrown him even further into the lion's den.

~~~

"If you are looking for a certain 'black sheep'," the card read, "you will find they are serving a particularly fine rack of lamb in the "Bizarre" Club, Miami."

Skinner's heart thudded with excitement. He didn't even pause to wonder who had sent the card or why, he simply picked up the phone and booked himself on the next available flight.

~~~

Mulder cowered in the narrow seat of the airplane, too intimidated by Skinner's brooding presence to even look out of the window. He stared into his lap, his shoulders hunched, and he played endlessly with his malformed fingers, trying desperately to ignore the throbbing waves of pain that tried to drown him, as his raw ass and thighs pressed against the thinly padded seat.

Not realising that Skinner had taken the only available tickets on the flight, Mulder assumed that their tiny, cramped and uncomfortable seats were a personal message to him that he was only worth an economy fare.

From the moment Mulder had felt his restraints released, his blindfold removed, and he had collapsed in a boneless, agonised heap on the floor, only to find himself staring into the unmistakable feet of Skinner, he had been uncertain whether to scream in terror or weep with relief.

Mulder couldn't even begin to imagine what was going to happen to him now. In retrospect, his flight had been so stupid that he couldn't even understand himself why he had done it, let alone try to explain.

Besides, having been found on the rack, his naked body black and blue, his belly obviously stained by his own cum, he was barely able to imagine what was going on in Skinner's head. He didn't think that Skinner would understand why he had chosen to atone in such a public and barbaric manner.

All Skinner would probably see was that Mulder had allowed other people to touch what was rightfully his. He might not care, or even believe, that none of it had been sexual. Skinner had obviously thought that he had been whoring himself, otherwise, why had his first words been a barked, "Present ass?"

Still stunned by Skinner's unexpected arrival, Mulder had obediently hauled himself onto his hands and knees, thrusting his swollen buttocks into the air for Skinner's inspection.

Then Mulder had felt his agonised cheeks pulled roughly apart and a dry finger had rammed into his tight pucker. He had tried to relax and allow the brutal invader to slip past his sphincter, but between his terror and a month of disuse, the muscle seemed to have forgotten its need to submit.

Instead of opening wide to accept Skinner, his delicate membranes had torn at the dry savage thrust of a single finger. With a grunt, Skinner had removed his blood stained finger and had told Mulder to get dressed.

Since then, Skinner had been terrifyingly silent. Mulder had pulled on his torn, filthy jeans and t-shirt and had hobbled out of the club in Skinner's wake.

Except for stopping at a store to pick up a clean t-shirt and jeans for him, they had gone straight to the airport from the club. Skinner had hauled him into the men's room at the airport and had thrown him into a stall with the clean clothes and a growled instruction to get changed.

Other than that brief exchange, Skinner hadn't spoken a single word to him, but the anger of the other man exuded in palpable waves off his artificially calm exterior.

He was in terror of what Skinner might do to him, but honestly was more scared that Skinner would do nothing, would simply drop him off at his apartment and drive away. He couldn't expect any more, he didn't deserve it.

The horror of his imminent abandonment was so great that he wanted to scream, and as much as he wanted to behave so impeccably that Skinner would believe him worthy of a second chance, his nerves were so highly strung that he simply couldn't sit still, and unable to shuffle his sore butt, he just played with his hands.

"Stop fidgeting," Skinner growled occasionally, his voice dripping with irritation and disgust.

Mulder would freeze in terror and literally sit on his hands to keep himself still. Yet, several minutes later, he would find his traitorous hands back in his lap, his fingers dancing nervously together again.

When the stewardess brought their dinner, Mulder was still so absorbed in his misery that it took a slap on his thigh from Skinner to get his attention.

"Sorry," he yelped in contrition. He looked around wild-eyed, saw the proffered food but couldn't make his trembling fingers unfasten the tray from the back of the seat in front. Skinner finally lost patience with him, slapped his awkward hands back into his lap and pulled the tray down for him, as though he were a clumsy child.

It was suddenly just too much to cope with. The mindless fear of the last few weeks descended back over him like an oppressive cloud, drowning him in guilt and bitter regret. His self-control snapping under the pressure, Mulder began to cry quietly, wringing his hands in frantic gestures of contrition.

Skinner colored furiously, as the stewardess's eyes widened in shock at the sight of a grown man sobbing like a chastened 5 year old.

"Is he alright?" she asked in concern, obviously wondering whether Mulder was one of those nervous flyers who erupted into violent air-rage.

"He's a little bit 'simple'," Skinner whispered back, thinking quickly, his face carefully schooled into an expression of paternal concern.

The stewardess's expression changed from alarm to pity as she regarded the handsome young man and considered Skinner's words helplessly.

"Let me know if either of you need anything," she finally offered and wandered back to the galley. "Damn," she asked her colleagues. "Why are all the good-looking ones married, gay or crazy?"

"Eat," Skinner ordered firmly, and Mulder bent his head into the plate and began to suck at the gravy.

"Use your fork," Skinner hissed, his face flushing with horrified mortification.

Mulder looked up at him in confusion, a dribble of gravy staining his chin, as though the word 'fork' was a foreign language. Then understanding slowly dawned and he picked the unfamiliar cutlery up and began to pick listlessly at the rubbery, airline dinner.

He really wanted to obey Skinner, he was in enough shit as it was without defying him over such a small matter, but his abused empty stomach turned over rebelliously as he chopped the overcooked sprouts and potato into a pale green mush and then tried to shovel the unpalatable offering between his braced teeth.

He simply hated vegetables, so his mouthful of overcooked greens choked him. He spluttered helplessly, fought the urge to vomit, and dropped his fork into his barely touched tray with a shudder of fear.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry," he began to whimper.

Skinner took in the green tinge of Mulder's face and the cold sweat that had broken out on his forehead, and his irritation began to transform into pity.

Sure, he was going to kick Fox's butt for the Miami fiasco, but still, he had never seen anything as pathetic as the sight of Mulder on that rack, and he was beginning to feel a definite sense of guilt over the fact that Mulder had felt the need to subject himself it.

He had walked into that club and had found himself on another planet. It was as though his illicit magazines had come to life. He had entered a room full of posturing Doms, near-naked subs and the unbelievable sight of several very public floggings that had made his cock lurch with excitement.

Yet, he hadn't been in any way prepared for what he found in the secret back room, where his discrete enquiries had swiftly led him.

His ease of admittance had proven, in his own mind at least, that his arrival had been anticipated. So it was hardly surprising that he should have found Mulder on the rack, his naked bruised flesh displayed to optimum effect.

As soon as he had entered the room, before the red rush of fury that thundered through his head erupted, the man who was beating Mulder turned to face him, gave a sly smirk and offered him the paddle.

"Your property, I assume?" the stranger had grinned, and had slipped past him and out of the room, leaving him to deal the aftermath of the violence.

In less than a month, Mulder's already thin frame had wasted to almost life-threatening emaciation. Even under the swollen heat of the raised welts over his ass, his butt cheeks were almost concave.

Every vertebrae in Mulder's spine was viciously pronounced and darkly bruised, as though the bones were trying to eat their way out of his skin. From shoulder blades to ankles, every inch of Mulder's flesh was deeply marked by thin stripes, interspersed by the wide flat bruising of the paddle.

In a fury of fear, anger, disgust and pity he had ripped the blindfold from Mulder's almost catatonic face and had hurriedly released the restraints that held him to the rack. It was only when Mulder collapsed to the floor, revealing the white stains on his stomach that a different fear had clutched Skinner's soul.

That strangers had whipped and marked his Fox was already more than he could bear to face. The sudden suspicion that they had also taken advantage of Mulder's hungry ass, galvanized him to a new level of outrage. Momentarily uncaring of Mulder's obvious agony, he had thrust his thick middle finger into Mulder's ass.

Withdrawing his finger from the surprisingly unyielding hole, he had sucked thoughtfully on the coppery taste of Mulder's blood.

So his pain-slut WASN'T a whore, after all, he told himself and he had almost staggered under the weight of his relief.

He hadn't been able to articulate his feelings. He was so damned relieved that Mulder was alive and still 'his', yet he was disgusted by the state that Mulder had let himself get into.

Not trusting himself to speak, for fear he would erupt and flay Mulder with his bitter words, he had simply bitten his tongue and glowered. Mulder was so thin and haunted that he looked as though a sharp word would break him, and the last thing that Skinner wanted to risk was Mulder bolting again through fear.

He had ordered Mulder to eat because he was so damn thin and malnourished, not to punish him for his transgressions. He was so used to Mulder eating dog-food without complaint, that it had never even occurred to him that there was anything that Mulder 'couldn't' stomach. He felt oddly ashamed that he had played so many power-games with Mulder that the other man didn't even dare offer a token protest.

"Eat your dessert, instead," he suggested mildly.

Mulder flashed him a quick look of relieved surprise and then broke an edge off the pastry and poked it between his brace. A second later, he stuffed the whole thing in, his fingers crushing it to fit the small gap and he swallowed so quickly that he couldn't possibly have tasted it, since it hadn't even touched the sides of his mouth.

So Mulder was as starving as he looked, Skinner realised, and if he was that hungry, he really must have found the other food revolting to have rejected it.

"Here," he said gruffly, and offered Mulder his own dessert too.

Rather than being met with gratitude, the unexpected kindness of his gesture made Mulder's face crumple into misery. His eyes filled with new tears and he began to cry again.

"I'm sorry, so sorry, so sorry," he gasped between his choking sobs. He turned in his seat and buried his face into Skinner's shoulder, desperate for forgiveness and comfort.

His own feelings of anger somewhat mollified, by the way Mulder clung to him with obvious regret and needy affection, Skinner soothed him desperately. He was horribly aware of the glances being thrown their way by other passengers, but he was also genuinely concerned at how distressed Mulder was. He finally asked the question that had been burning on his tongue for hours.

"Why, Fox? Why the hell did you do it?"

"You told me to "stay the hell out of your sight,"" Mulder reminded him tearfully.

"But I don't understand. If you were scared of me punishing you, why the hell did you go to those clubs? Even I have never hurt you like those strangers obviously did."

"I deserved to be punished," Mulder whispered.

"Undoubtedly," Skinner replied grimly. "But why them? Why run away and let strangers punish you?"

"I - I was too scared," Mulder whimpered.

"Of me?" Skinner demanded.

"That you would leave me. That you would end it," Mulder whispered.

"You were scared of me leaving you, so you ran away?" Skinner asked in bemusement.

"Yes," Mulder replied timidly.

Skinner shook his head in an attempt to make sense of what seemed completely bizarre.

"Let me get this straight. You ran away because you thought I didn't want you anymore?"

"You - you said if I-if I fucked up, you would tear up our contract," Mulder whimpered.

"And you ran away so that I wouldn't?" Skinner demanded incredulously.

"Yeah," Mulder mumbled forlornly.

"That's crazy," Skinner snapped.

"I know," Mulder replied with a sob of despair.

"You broke it by running, anyway, Fox. The contract is void," Skinner pointed out.

Fox gave a huge gulp and then began to cry even louder. People were beginning to turn their heads in curiosity. Skinner glared at them all until they turned away in embarrassment. Skinner himself was beginning to wonder whether Mulder was genuinely suffering from a nervous breakdown.

"Be quiet, Fox," he snapped, but despite his harsh tone, he wasn't angry anymore.

He finally understood. He had pushed Mulder too far. He had frightened the other man past his breaking point. And like an animal, unable to deal with his pain and fear, Mulder had run away. But only from the situation, not from him.

That made all the difference.

He realised that this situation had been created by his own deliberate cruelty. He had created a need in Mulder and then it had amused him to see how far he could push the other man physically because of that need. It had never occurred to him that Mulder would snap completely through fear of abandonment, rather than of punishment.

Yet it should have. All of Mulder's previous relationships had ended with rejection. Why wouldn't he have expected the same of Skinner? Skinner had known that at some level, he admitted to himself finally, and yet he hadn't understood the depth of Mulder's fear. He had wielded the possible cessation of their relationship like a blunt weapon. He had swung it with thoughtless brutality, instead of clever guile, and had evidently gone too far.

Part of Skinner wanted to call the whole thing off. Not because he didn't want Mulder anymore, but because he was finally realising just how much damage he had already done to the once brilliant Mulder. His games had already almost destroyed Mulder's mind. How the hell could he continue, now he was aware of what he had done?

Yet, he was also glaringly aware of his own obligation to the other man. Mulder's actions in Miami had proven to him that even if he removed himself from Mulder's life, then Mulder would only go out and find someone else to abuse him instead.

And that voice, the one that told him it was too late to turn back anyway, allowed him to reconcile his decision.

He WOULDN'T give Mulder up to someone else. He would instead turn the game up a notch. He would stop pretending to himself that he didn't enjoy their "relationship", and instead embrace it wholeheartedly.

Mulder obviously needed to feel safer in the relationship. He needed boundaries to work within. And he needed to be saved from his own tendency to run away from confrontation. This time, Skinner needed to provide Mulder with a safety net.

"Do you still want to be my slave?" he asked Mulder quietly.

Mulder choked back his sobs and gave Skinner a look of bewildered hope.

"Yes, Sir," he said fervently. From the moment that Skinner had arrived in the club, he had barely dared to hope that it meant that he WAS wanted after all, yet surely this was what Skinner was trying to say.

"If I agree to give you a second chance, we will need a new contract, a 'tighter' contract," Skinner warned.

Mulder nodded eagerly, his hazel eyes dancing with joy.

"There will never be a repetition of this situation, Fox. If you ever run away again, I will not come for you. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir," Mulder replied, his voice filled with both shame and new hope.

"These are the terms of the new contract I am offering you. From now on, you will live in my apartment rather than your own. You will have no 'free time' in which to brood and overreact to things. You will return to work, you will live a normal life between 9 and 5, but in our apartment you will have no rights. You will wear no clothes unless I allow them, you will sleep on the floor, you will obey me without question from the moment you return from work until the moment you leave for work the next morning.

"You will wash and clean for me. You will do the cooking and the shopping. In short, you will be my slave in all things. If you disobey me, I will beat you. I may even beat you just because it pleases me to do so.

"If you accept this contract, I will keep you, and look after you. Do you accept?"

Mulder looked at him with huge, puppy eyes. All he heard was Skinner's statement that he would be living with him from now on.

"Will you, will you -" but he lost the nerve to ask it out loud, *will you love me* he wanted to know. Because if Skinner loved him, he could cope with anything the other man did to him, but he knew a denial would snap his fragile heart apart.

So when Skinner snapped impatiently, "Will I what?"

Mulder instead implored, "Will you fuck me?" and somehow an affirmative answer would be enough, it HAD to be enough.

"Sometimes, if you please me enough," Skinner confirmed, unwilling to admit, even to himself, that only the public nature of the plane had prevented him from ripping Mulder's jeans off already.

Mulder gave a shy grin.

"Will it please you if I say yes to the contract?" he asked hopefully, a trace of mischief sparkling golden in his eyes, as he dared to take advantage of Skinner's unexpected good humor and risked pushing the other man further.

Skinner guffawed.

"Yes, it would, Fox," he replied.

"Then yes, I agree to everything," Mulder hissed, sneaking his right hand into Skinner's lap and caressing his groin suggestively.

Skinner's cock reared to attention. He looked at Mulder's face and knew that his 'slave' was deliberately teasing him, thinking that there was nothing he could do about his arousal.

Skinner smirked nastily.

"Come on," he said to Mulder, grabbing his hand and hauling him to his feet.

"Where are we going?" Mulder asked nervously.

"We're going to join the mile-high club," Skinner replied, enjoying Mulder's look of hopeful disbelief.

He dragged Mulder down the aisle and past the galley to the toilets. He noticed the stewardess giving them a curious glance as they passed.

"He needs help to, you know," he whispered at her.

She colored and nodded in acknowledgement.

"It usually takes some time, because he tends to be 'naughty'," Skinner told her.

"Oh, I understand," she replied flustered, "I'll send any other passengers to another toilet."

"Thank you, my dear," Skinner beamed and pushed a stunned Mulder into the tiny bathroom.

For the next 20 minutes, the stewardess headed off all enquiries about the strange yelps and bangs in the toilet.

"Some poor man with a retarded son," she told everyone innocently.

Any lingering doubts were settled by the glazed look of complete mindless bliss on Mulder's face as he was led silently back down the aisle by a fully satiated Skinner, and then proceeded to curl up like a little boy on Skinner's lap, tucking his head into Skinner's neck and falling asleep.

~~~

It wasn't until Skinner actually put Mulder in the taxi, directed it to Crystal City and then led him upstairs, that Mulder truly believed that he was really going to be moving in with the older man.

Skinner was silent for the most part of the journey, only growling discouragingly when Mulder tried to climb on his lap in the taxi. So subdued, but hopeful, Mulder had accompanied him.

It felt strange to enter Skinner's apartment in the knowledge that it was to become his home now. He hesitated uncertainly in the living room, fixing his eyes resolutely on the floor, determined not to incur Skinner's wrath by taking any liberties. He wasn't certain of what Skinner would expect of him in a 24/7 relationship, so he thought it was best to assume nothing and wait for instruction.

Danny had certainly seemed like the cat with the proverbial cream, and since he was Mulder's only role model for a full-time sub, Mulder could only imagine that his life had taken a huge leap for the better.

Skinner himself had taken the opportunity of the journey to plan the new contract. He couldn't cope with this Mulder who wanted to climb all over him like a lovesick puppy. He wanted, and needed, Mulder to pull himself together, and he instinctively knew that the boundaries of their new relationship needed to be clearly defined right from the beginning.

"Stay," he snapped and left Mulder hovering uncertainly as he went to the spare bedroom.

It was a functional room at best, with a queen size bed, a bedside cabinet, a small wardrobe and a chest of drawers. Skinner stripped the bed of pillows and comforter until only a white sheet covered the mattress. He packed the bedding away, leaving just a small pile of replacement sheets in the bottom of the wardrobe.

He took down the two pictures that hung on the wall, removed the curtains and then went to his own room to retrieve his bag of restraints, whips, paddles and "toys".

He displayed the items of punishment visibly on the cupboard top, and put the restraints on the bedside table.

When he had finished, there was little doubt that this room had a particular purpose, one that didn't include comfort of any description. Satisfied with the image that he had created, he returned to the living room. He was pleased to find that Mulder hadn't moved an inch in his absence.

"Follow me," he barked, and Mulder scurried after him into the spare bedroom.

Skinner gestured around the barren room, seeing Mulder tremble with a combination of fear and excitement as the message of the room sank in.

"This is your room, Fox. You will keep your clothes here and we will play here. This is also where you will be punished or perhaps even rewarded."

Mulder's eyes fruitlessly searched Skinner's face for a sign of his earlier affection. He was bewildered to find only a mask of coldness. Palmer hadn't been cold, he remembered sadly. Palmer had been kind, even reaching out his protection to a stranger. Palmer had been easily affectionate, confident enough of his status as a Dom to show both Danny and Mulder a light and easy hand of control.

But, then again, Skinner obviously wasn't Palmer.

"Come," Skinner snapped harshly, finding the pleading look in Mulder's eyes to be oddly unsettling. He had an urge to hug the younger man, to stroke him and calm his fears, and to prevent himself from acting on the impulse, he became brusque and cold.

Mulder trotted anxiously down the corridor, at Skinner's heels, to the main bedroom. Skinner pointed at the far corner of the room where a heavy antique dressing table hulked.

"Help me move this along the wall," he ordered.

In his emaciated condition, Mulder could barely pick up his end, despite Skinner taking most of the weight himself. Skinner registered the fact and filed it away for useful reference. When the furniture had been moved several feet, leaving the corner bare, Skinner pointed at the revealed carpet.

"This is where you will sleep, Fox," he said firmly.

Mulder looked confused, before remembering that Skinner had mentioned his "own" room being for sex and punishment only, then looked in dismay at the carpet, his eyes darting longingly for Skinner's bed. Skinner saw the movement and chuckled.

"That is MY bed, Fox. Your bed is here, unless you prefer your own apartment," and he gestured towards the door.

Mulder trembled at the implied threat and nodded with sorrowful compliance as Skinner handed him a couple of thin blankets.

"These will do for now. I will sort out something more appropriate tomorrow. Make your 'bed', then go to your room, strip and wait for me."

"Yes, Sir," Mulder mumbled in defeat.

He placed the blankets neatly on the floor, folding the edges with precision, realising that he would be freezing if he had to sleep on the floor with such sparse protection, but worrying more about what Skinner would consider 'more appropriate'.

Then he hurried to 'his' room, stripped off, folded his clothes neatly into a pile on the floor and sank into position, waiting for Skinner's return.

About an hour later, Skinner poked his head around the door, his breath catching at the sight of Mulder's bruised but still beautiful body displayed for his pleasure.

"Go to the bathroom, take a cold shower, and prepare yourself for me. Quickly!"

"Yes, Sir," Mulder gasped ecstatically, scrambling to his feet with enthusiasm.

Skinner gave him a slap on the buttocks as he passed, and Mulder squealed, but Skinner noted that the noise was definitely more excited than pained or terrified.

He needed to work Mulder hard tonight, he realised. He needed to capture whatever need it was that had forced Mulder to behave as he had in Miami, and then prove that he could fulfill Mulder's needs adequately himself.

It was a strange thought that he was going to somehow be proving to his slave that he was a worthy master. He wasn't sure whether to be amused by the thought or annoyed.

Mulder returned a few minutes later, still wet since Skinner had removed the towels from the bathroom. His skin was slightly blue and he was shivering violently since the apartment had been unheated for two days now.

"You cold, boy?"

"Y-y-yes S-s-sir," Mulder admitted, his teeth chattering.

"I'm going to warm you up, boy," Skinner promised.

Mulder's eyes flashed fear, yet his face flushed with excitement and his cock jerked in response to Skinner's promise.

Skinner decided it was time to get down to business. He walked over to the cupboard, looked thoughtfully at the items on the top, and chose a cock-cage with a ball spreader and a large butt-plug.

He tossed the items on the bed.

"Put these on," he demanded coldly.

Mulder flushed again but complied. His trembling fingers struggled a little with the fastenings of the cock cage, and he kept darting frightened looks at Skinner in case he was taking too long. Then he picked up the butt-plug and bit his lower lip pensively. There was no way the thick rubber could penetrate his tight ass without help.

Skinner understood his hesitation, and merely handed him a tube of lubrication. He smirked as Mulder used his fingers to open himself and then squatted to insert the plug. There was no dignified way for Mulder to do the procedure and his face was flaming with humiliation by the time he had finished.

"Go bend over the foot of the bed," Skinner said quietly, and Mulder swallowed nervously but complied without a murmur.

The hours on the airplane had only served to aggravate the deep bruises that covered Mulder from neck to toe, so Skinner knew that he would need to apply very little stimulation to make him squirm and scream.

So, Skinner chose a large, flat leather paddle, one that wouldn't bruise but would adequately inflame the surface of Mulder's skin. He made the first swipe without warning and the shock made Mulder yelp, but then they gained a rhythm, as Skinner laid an even pattern of light strokes on both of Mulder's butt cheeks and Mulder moaned and writhed under the assault.

Mulder began thrusting his ass into the strokes, desperate for more sensation than the light paddling was providing.

Skinner responded to his need, varying the rhythm, deepening the blows and occasionally striking Mulder in the crack of his ass so that the butt plug was forced against Mulder's prostate, causing the younger man to howl.

Yet still, Skinner knew that they were only touching the surface of both of their desires. He swapped the paddle for a thin strap and began to apply it in a criss-cross over Mulder's red swollen flesh.

"This what you need, boy?" Skinner growled as Mulder thrashed under the blows, his knuckles white as he clenched the mattress to try to keep his body still under the assault.

"Yes, oh God, yes," Mulder screamed as the thin leather slapped into his skin and the resultant wash of pain exploded into his groin, causing the cock-cage to constrict cruelly against his swollen genitals.

"Please, Sir, let me come, please let me come," Mulder begged, tears pouring down his cheeks.

At the club, despite the brutality and the restraints, he had never been prevented from taking his own pleasure from the beatings. He had almost forgotten how agonising it was to have his relief so savagely prevented. Yet there was a familiarity to the burning in his groin that centered him, reminding him that he was HOME.

"NO," Skinner snapped, punctuating his reprimand with a series of sharper blows.

Mulder yelped and sobbed but bowed his forehead into the mattress in acceptance. Skinner ceased the beating and grasped the end of the butt plug, working it back and forwards so that the thickest part stretched Mulder's sphincter.

Then he withdrew it completely and Mulder sobbed again as he was emptied.

"Shush, boy," Skinner growled, slapping the reddened buttocks distractedly as his eyes scanned the cupboard top for his next toy.

His eyes lit on the bullyboy vibrator and he smiled and reached for it.

"Can you stay still Fox? Or do I have to tie you?" he asked softly

"I'll stay," Mulder whimpered pleadingly.

Skinner looked at him thoughtfully and then decided to accept Mulder's promise.

After the huge plug, he found it relatively easy to slide most of the thick vibrator into Mulder's hole; it was only the last few inches that took a little forcing. But soon all twelve inches were buried inside the younger man. He slid the thong harness up Mulder's legs, fastening the straps around Mulder's hips, looping them around the cock cage and then fastening them tightly around Mulder's ball-sac. Then, when the Vibrator was firmly embedded and held in place, he turned it on.

Mulder jerked and bucked on the bed as the deep vibrations pulsed against his prostate.

"Stand up," Skinner ordered, and Mulder pulled himself jerkily to his feet, his body wracked with deliciously tormenting spasms.

"Come with me," Skinner said and left the room.

Mulder followed him with difficulty, barely able to resist the urge to run his fingers over his tortured cock head, which was weeping furiously. His knees were shaking beneath the powerful surges that pulsed through his ass.

Skinner led him to the living room, pointed at the corner next to the television and told him to take position. Then he sat down on the sofa and clicked the remote control

Skinner pretended to watch a film; although Mulder's constant moaning shudders were a constant distraction. He waited until Mulder's eyes were completely glazed with pain and need before he finally clicked off the TV and led Mulder back to 'his' room.

He removed the vibrator and thong harness, but left the cock-cage in place for the moment. Then he attached the weights to the ball-spreader, making Mulder gasp and whimper, and finally opened his own trousers to let his cock spring out.

Mulder automatically dipped his head and kissed it worshipfully.

"What do you want, boy?" Skinner growled.

"Fuck me, Sir please," Mulder whimpered, turning and wriggling his flaming ass enticingly.

Skinner toyed with the idea of teasing him some more, but his own cock rebelled at the thought, so without further delay he buried himself into Mulder's prepared hole.

It was fast, furious and brutal. Each thrust dragged a scream of pain from Mulder, even as he begged Skinner to do him faster and harder.

Mulder was sure that his own cock was doing to blow up; the pressure in his balls was so great that he could barely think for need.

Then, at the exact moment that Skinner released his seed into Mulder's ass, he reached forward and snapped the cock-cage off.

"Come, boy!" Skinner ordered and Mulder's cock gushed.

The release was so sudden and furious that Mulder lost consciousness, crashing to the bed, crushed by Skinner's own dead weight.

"Feel better now, boy?" Skinner asked gruffly as Mulder's eyelids fluttered open to reveal eyes dark and placid with satiated lust.

"Oh, yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir," Mulder whispered and buried his head into Skinner's chest.

For a moment, Skinner allowed himself to enjoy the feeling of Mulder in his arms, his thin chest heaving as his heart raced to replace the oxygen burn of their frenetic coupling.

Then he thrust Mulder away from himself irritably, as he realised that he was cuddling his 'slave'. He jumped to his feet, pointed to the clean sheets in the cupboard and ordered Mulder to change the bedding, then clean himself and get to bed.

Skinner returned to the living room for a quiet drink.

To his considerable satisfaction, when he finally retired to bed himself, he found Mulder curled up shivering in the corner of his bedroom, the thin blankets wrapped desperately around his naked, wet body.

He climbed into his own bed and was quickly asleep, despite Mulder's occassional involuntary whimpers. Yet at some point in the night, Mulder's exhaustion overcame the cold discomfort of his 'bed' and when Skinner awoke the next morning, he found Mulder fast asleep, his face relaxed and boyish, lost in some obviously pleasant dream.

It was this, more than anything, the fact that Mulder had slept well, his dreams unbroken by nightmare, which convinced Skinner that he was finally taking the right track with Mulder.

Mulder thrived on the pain, even on the humiliation, but couldn't bear the loneliness of being sent away afterwards. He had chosen to sleep on the floor like a dog, rather than return to his own apartment.

Quite simply, Mulder needed Skinner more than he needed comfort or safety. He needed to belong.

~~~

Part Nine

Mulder couldn't believe that he got through the day. Having finally managed to drag himself to his feet, he didn't dare sit back down for fear that he would stiffen up and be unable to move again. He spent the whole day finding reasons to stay upright, and since Skinner had left him a huge list of duties, including washing and ironing a mountain of clothes, he didn't have time to sit anyway.

It felt almost good to have the list. Working his way slowly down his assigned tasks saved him from having to think. It allowed him to stay in an almost mindless haze where the future and the past became meaningless. There was only now. The throbbing pain of his body was like an anesthetic for his mind.

Nevertheless, the occasional errant thought intruded. He thought about his job. His desk was probably overflowing with interesting files, yet the lure of work was weak and insubstantial. The X-files, that had once been the center of his existence, were just a blurred memory of another life lived by another man.

When Skinner had told him that he was on indefinite medical leave and therefore wasn't to return to work until he had regained at least 10 kilos, he hadn't even tried to argue.

Besides, since Skinner had already started the process of him regaining that weight, Mulder was too preoccupied by the thought of food, to give more than a glancing thought to work.

Skinner had actually let him sleep until the breakfast was already cooked, so he had woken to the tantalizing smell of a full English breakfast and had found himself drooling like a dog, in response to the aroma.

His hunger had been so great, that when he heard Skinner call his name, he had scrambled out of the thin blankets and tried to make his agonised body rise to its feet. The two severe beatings of the day before had exacted their toll, however. No matter how desperate his need to obey Skinner's summons, he simply couldn't make his legs accept his weight.

Giving up, he instead scurried painfully into the kitchen on his hands and knees, and slid to an eager stop, almost oblivious to the chill of the tiled floor as he knelt in position.

"Hungry?" Skinner asked, with a ghost of a smile.

Mulder dared to look up, his eyes pleading, to where Skinner sat at the kitchen table, heartily tucking into his eggs and bacon. He began to tremble, maddened by the sight of the food, and gave a low whimpering moan.

Skinner deliberately made him wait until he had finished his own breakfast, enjoying the hopeless way that Mulder tracked every mouthful from Skinner's plate to his mouth.

Each time Skinner's lips closed over the fork, Mulder gave a little shudder, his brow furrowing and his eyes closing briefly in sorrow, only to snap open again to check what was still left on Skinner's place.

As it became increasingly obvious that Skinner was intending to finish every last morsel, even to the extent of wiping the last juices off his plate with a piece of fried bread and chewing happily, Mulder gave a whimpering sigh and dropped his eyes back to the floor.

Skinner saw a lone tear trickle down Mulder's face and splash on the floor tiles.

Pleased with Mulder's placid, if miserable, acceptance of his teasing, Skinner rose to his feet and retrieved Mulder's bowls from the warming shelf of the oven.

So hungry that he didn't care whether the bowls contained Alpo or even cabbage now, Mulder began to shuffle with excitement as Skinner approached him with the bowls. A thin stream of saliva began to dribble from the side of his mouth and down his chin.

"Good boy," Skinner said, as though Mulder were an obedient puppy. Then he placed the bowls on the floor.

For a moment, Mulder was frozen by shock, then he scrambled forward and threw his face in the first bowl, slurping ecstatically at the thick, creamy, honey-drizzled porridge.

The sweetness of the warm, gooey food exploded on his tongue, and he felt it sliding down his gullet, landing in his stomach and settling there like a lead brick.

He forced his tongue through the brace and licked the bowl until it was shiningly clean, before turning to the next bowl. The sloppy, scrambled eggs made his heart lurch as he remembered that morning at Palmer's house, but then he just began to suck on the delicious goodness, again licking the bowl clean until it was gone.

Almost uncomfortably full, he gratefully accepted the bowl of water that replaced his food bowls.

Skinner watched him feast with satisfaction. Mulder's weight loss terrified him. There was no way he dared let Mulder return to work until he stopped looking like an escapee from a concentration camp. He would pick up some protein powder from the health shop, and start blending it into Mulder's porridge, he decided.

Before he left for work, he handed Mulder an extensive list of chores. He didn't expect that Mulder would finish them. To be honest, he wasn't even sure that Mulder could stand unassisted.

Skinner just didn't want Mulder to sit around brooding, or even possibly run again.

It never occurred to him that Mulder had no intention of running. Having finally gained the safety of Skinner's apartment, Mulder honestly couldn't bear to imagine leaving it. The world outside these four walls was a dark, terrifying, lonely place.

Which wasn't to say he was happy. He was furious that Skinner had refused to share his bed with him. It seemed like pointless spite. The older man could at least have let Mulder sleep in his 'own' bed. Palmer would have, he told himself petulantly.

Yet, still, the knowledge that he was living with Skinner rather than facing the bleak solitude of his own apartment was, in itself, worth the cost of his humiliation.

Skinner wanted him. Wanted him enough to have come and collected him. He hadn't even punished him for running, unless the sleeping thing was his punishment.

Yeah, probably, he decided. He would obviously have to work his way into Skinner's bed.

At least he was in his apartment, which was a far better offer than he had ever expected.

He would submit to Skinner's need for control, and maybe slowly Skinner would loosen up and realise that Mulder WANTED to be there, so there was no need to be as harsh with him.

He knew that Skinner loved him. Why else would he revolve his life around wanting to control him? It wasn't what Mulder wanted, but he understood Skinner's need for control and that it was the price he exacted for giving Mulder what he needed.

Skinner wanted the illusion of total control, and Mulder was willing to take Skinner on any terms.

He just wished that Skinner had more sense than to always give in to Mulder's own needs. Skinner's beating, the night before, on top of the earlier session at the club, been one beating too many.

He didn't 'blame' Skinner. He knew that he had himself begged for the strap. Nevertheless, he was equally sure that Skinner should have had the sense to say no.

Mulder knew that he didn't have any self-control in their bondage games, and as little as he knew about D/S relationships, he was pretty sure that it was Skinner's responsibility to draw a line before Mulder got really hurt.

He certainly couldn't draw that line himself. At the moment of the abuse, Mulder was a slave to his own passions; it was only the next day that the pain registered as unhealthy. He wished that Skinner were better at judging that.

On the other hand, maybe Skinner was as out of control as he himself was.

~~~

Mulder looked in dismay at the large oval plastic-molded dog bed that Skinner brought home to replace his blankets.

"It's the largest size, Fox. The assistant assured me that a Great Dane would fit in it. So a little fox like you should be more than comfortable. See, it even has a padded quilt lining," Skinner smirked.

"What do you say, Fox?"

Mulder bit his lip to stop himself telling Skinner exactly what he DID think of the dog-bed. He just didn't understand what Skinner thought he was doing with the dog-bowls and the collar and now the fucking dog-bed.

If Skinner wanted a dog, why the hell didn't he just go out and buy a fucking poodle?

Danny hadn't slept in a dog-bed. Danny hadn't worn a dog-collar. Danny hadn't been treated like some fucking mongrel animal.

Finally having another sub to compare himself with, Mulder was increasingly aware of his dissatisfaction with his own status. There were other Doms out there who would give him what he needed without treating him so badly, he decided.

"You can't make me," he hissed at Skinner.

Skinner's face distorted with anger at Mulder's unexpected defiance.

"If you don't play MY game, Fox, I won't play yours," he threatened.

Mulder flinched, but didn't give in.

"You're not the only person who can give me what I need," he whispered. "I know that now."

"So why are you here, Fox? Why didn't you go home with one of your "buddies" from that club?" Skinner taunted.

Like a pricked balloon, Mulder's confidence deflated. His lower lip quivered as he remembered Palmer's car driving away from him.

Skinner smirked as he saw Mulder's defiance collapse into miserable uncertainty.

"No one else wanted you, did they?" he asked.

Mulder just dropped his head.

"DID THEY?" Skinner shouted.

"No," Mulder eventually confessed with a sob of despair.

"In my apartment, THIS is where you sleep. If you have a problem with the idea, just say so and I will call you a taxi," Skinner warned.

Mulder swallowed furiously and blinked back his tears.

"I'm sorry, Sir," he whispered, ducking his head in defeat and crawling into the bed.

~~~

In losing the "battle of the bed", Mulder gave carte blanche to Skinner.

Despite his good intentions, Skinner soon found himself back in his old pattern of behaviour, endlessly seeing how far he could push Mulder and continually using the threat of sending Mulder away as the stick to beat him with.

Whenever Skinner found that their arrangement was becoming a little too 'domestic' for his liking, he would introduce a new level to the game, a new humiliation for Mulder to accept and embrace.

He taught him to 'fetch', carrying Skinner's slippers and newspaper in his mouth. Then Skinner upped the ante, having Mulder 'fetch' the whips and paddles in his mouth too.

He found a harness on the web that prevented Mulder from standing upright, deciding he preferred him crawling permanently on the floor, even if that made him unable to perform chores.

Partly it was a sub-conscious reaction to Mulder's physical response to the good food. As Mulder lost the fragility of emaciation and began to regain his previous health, Skinner began to worry that a healthy Mulder would no longer submit to his control.

So he kept pushing, keeping him off-balance, on one hand forcing him to get better and with the other hand punishing him for his recovery.

As Mulder's looks came back, so did the possibility that someone else WOULD want him, so Skinner found it necessary to keep reinforcing the fact that Mulder didn't deserve to be kept.

It was only when he removed Mulder's water one day and forced him to drink from the toilet bowl instead, completely forgetting the bleach block in the cistern, that Skinner realised he had gone too far.

Finding Mulder puking his guts up on his favorite carpet, Skinner had finally had the grace to be ashamed rather than angry.

He had cleaned Mulder up and taken him to his own bed, holding him comfortingly as Mulder dry heaved and shuddered through the night.

The next day, Skinner threw the dog bed and the harness away, without any word of explanation, and from then on, Mulder was allowed to sleep at the foot of his own bed, instead.

This first concession became a catalyst for change.

Skinner found that he liked sharing his bed. It was comforting to wake with Mulder's warm body curled around his feet, so it was logical to revert to allowing Mulder to spend the evenings curled at his feet in the living room in front of the TV.

Skinner's new 'light-hand', brought the sparkle back into Mulder's eyes and he began to thrive on Skinner's decision to be openly more affectionate.

On the nights that Skinner returned home too exhausted to pay Mulder any attention, Mulder learnt to look after him, climbing in the shower with him to massage the knots out of his muscles under the hot spray, then straddling his hips in bed and fucking himself on Skinner's cock.

Skinner would lie in bed, his body reduced to mush, his cock as hard as steel, and let the younger man impale himself and then ride, his pace slow and infinitely gentle.

Eyes shut, head thrown back to reveal his elegant collared throat, his own cock rigid and weeping, there would be no mistaking the complete bliss Mulder felt in being able to worship Skinner in this fashion.

Well aware of Mulder's own preference for hard and vicious fucking, the very gentleness of his movements proved conclusively to Skinner that Mulder's enthusiasm for these sessions was based purely on his need to please Skinner.

It was the only time that Skinner found himself actually tempted to kiss the younger man. He never acted on the impulse, the idea of kissing another man making his stomach churn, yet the temptation was undisputedly there.

By the end of the fourth week, Mulder's jaw had healed enough for the brace to be removed, and although he was still 15 kilos under his preferred body weight, Mulder was finally medically cleared to go back to work.

Which was a problem of its own.

In view of Mulder's absence, Scully had accepted a further term of teaching at Quantico, but she was due back in DC by the end of the month.

Skinner was beginning to think that the best way to deal with THAT problem, would be to let Mulder go back to work, just long enough to prove that he was no longer capable of doing his job, and then fire him before Scully returned.

Skinner was sure that it would take no more than a couple of days before his decision to "let him go" was met with a universal sign of relief.

Yet, to his surprise, as soon as Mulder set foot in his basement, a tentative smile had flickered across his face. Skinner had left him alone burrowing through his dusty files, assuming that Mulder would dream the day away, only to find a neat stack of completed reports on his desk by 5pm.

Although Mulder was noticeably shy and reclusive, no one commented adversely on his behaviour, and Skinner began to believe that he might even get away with letting Scully see him like this.

~~~

Mulder dove back into his work with single-minded purpose. However, the months of disuse had dulled his brain and the monsters of reality had brutally taught his mind to shy away from his previous intuitive leaps into paranormal explanations. His single-minded purpose was no longer to solve the mysteries, it was merely to please Skinner.

One by one, he closed his open files with rigid determination, forcing the facts to fit acceptable explanations, interested only in ensuring that Skinner would be pleased with him.

It never occurred to him that anyone else might be concerned about his casual dismissal of his life's work.

He would hesitantly hand the files over to Kim at the end of the day, clocking out at exactly 5pm and then racing home to get ready for Skinner's return.

Home.

It was the only thing that motivated him, the only word that mattered. He had a home and he wasn't EVER going to do anything to screw it up.

~~~

"What the fuck are you doing in my office?" Skinner snarled. He had been so busy closing down his computer that he hadn't heard the other man sneak into the room.

It was only the odor of cigarette smoke assaulting his nostrils that alerted him to Spender's presence.

"I just called by to discuss a weird phenomenon," Spender replied, with a satisfied grin.

Skinner glowered at him blankly.

"The mysterious shrinking x-files," Spender explained.

"I don't know what the hell you are talking about and I don't care. Get the hell out of my office, before I throw you out!" Skinner snapped, but his eyes jumped nervously to the ever-growing pile of neat folders on the edge of his desk.

He had been increasingly concerned by the nonsense that Mulder was proudly delivering to his office every evening. He had deliberately chosen not to process the files, deciding that Scully's return would either help Mulder get himself 'back on track' or bring Mulder's career to a dramatic end. Either way, he hadn't expected to have to deal with the disturbing contents of Mulder's files.

"It's extraordinary, isn't it? All these unsolved cases, sitting for years in a dusty basement, suddenly all being brought to such dull and ordinary conclusions," Spender commented. "They make remarkably boring reading, in my opinion. Not a spark of imagination in any of them."

"How the hell HAVE you read them?" Skinner challenged back, deciding that offense was the best defense against the obnoxious bastard. "Those files are not only confidential, they also haven't left this office. Interfering with Government Documents is a Federal Offense, in case you had forgotten. I suggest that you stop this conversation before you incriminate yourself."

Spender smiled enigmatically.

"Ah, well there are worse things that we BOTH could be charged with, don't you think? There is NOTHING that goes on in this building that my associates are not aware of, you should know that by now. The very fact that you failed to process the reports brought them to our attention. We wondered what you were trying to cover up. Imagine our surprise when we discovered that your little sub-" he paused, enjoying Skinner's resultant blanch, "-ordinate was merrily closing the x-files down"

"Agent Mulder has adopted a more pragmatic approach," Skinner agreed carefully, his mind racing as he reviewed his recent behaviour. He had repeatedly checked both his office and home for bugs. He had never touched Mulder in public, except for the Miami incident.

His heart began to flutter. The note, the fucking note telling him where Mulder had been found. The anonymous, 'helpful' note. The way the club employees had been so co-operative, leading him straight to Mulder and letting him take him. Shit! How the fuck had he been so damned stupid?

"Ah yes, the new and improved Agent Mulder," Spender mocked. "What a fey and obedient pet he has become. You must be very proud of yourself, Skinner."

"I don't know what the hell you are talking about," Skinner snapped, his face going very still, a nervous shiver running up his spine.

"Really?" Spender replied with a knowing smirk, settling himself in a chair.

"You're leaving," Skinner hissed. "Don't bother getting comfortable."

Spender pointedly ignored him by lighting up another cigarette.

"Our mutual acquaintances are very concerned about Mulder's new attitude. He used to be such an annoying little creature, but nevertheless a useful one, before you decided to 'discipline' him.

"I admit, at first, that we applauded your efforts. Lately, however, we have begun to regret returning your 'lost property' to you. This new habit of closing cases that we would prefer remain open, is getting extremely irritating."

Spender laughed delightedly as Skinner's eyes narrowed at the confirmation that Spender had sent him the "black sheep" note.

"What do you want?" Skinner growled.

"People might 'misunderstand' why Fox is living in your apartment," Spender said lightly. "I suggest it would be in your best interests to cancel that arrangement immediately."

Skinner looked at him in complete surprise. He had expected blackmail, not an instruction to simply cease and desist.

"Why?" he asked simply, understanding there was no point trying to deny his involvement with Mulder.

Spender shrugged.

"It suited our purposes before to let you tame him. We even considered that your 'relationship' with him would open YOU up to more 'possibilities'. However, things have changed. We assumed that he would become less effectual. We never expected him to become totally useless. The X-files serve a purpose, Skinner. We don't intend for them to be closed down."

"I haven't processed the reports, as you know. Neither do I have any intention of doing so. Agent Mulder is currently experiencing some difficulty in concentrating on his work. The situation will be rectified shortly when Agent Scully returns," Skinner snapped.

"Agent Scully, who will take one look at Mulder and make a formal demand that he has a psychiatric evaluation," Spender mocked. "Unlike you, Skinner, she takes her job seriously. She doesn't allow personal feelings to interfere with her duties, and her duty to her partner will force her to 'betray' him."

Skinner forced himself to ignore Spender's jibe.

"Isn't that exactly what you want? Mulder fired?" he challenged.

"If we wanted Mulder out of the picture, he would have gone a long time ago," Spender replied coldly. "His dismissal on the grounds of insanity will cast so much doubt on the validity of the X-files that they will be closed down, you fool."

Skinner snapped, jumping forward to grab Spender and shaking him like the rat he was.

"Don't you DARE sit in my office and call me a fool," he spat, dropping Spender in disgust as he started to cough and choke.

"Should I call you a 'queer', instead?" Spender rasped.

This time Skinner knocked him across the room. Spender picked himself up, gingerly wiping the blood off his lower lip. Skinner's face was almost purple with outrage, the veins on his forehead prominent.

"I take it you don't like THAT term either," Spender said mildly. "of course, you will have to get used to it if certain facts become public."

"I'll kill you," Skinner hissed.

Spender shrugged. "You can't kill my associates," he said pointedly.

"What do you want," Skinner repeated, his eyes dangerous.

"Agent Scully transferred and a partner of our choosing to replace her."

"What about Mulder? You say you want to keep him in the job. If I throw him out of my apartment, he'll fall apart." Skinner pointed out.

"We are aware that you have awoken certain "needs" in Agent Mulder. I have made arrangements for a more suitable Dom to take over from now on. One who actually knows what he is doing," Spender smirked.

"He's MINE," Skinner growled, his caution flying to the wind at the thought of another man taking his property.

"Oh no, Skinner. He's mine. He always had been. He just doesn't realise it yet," Spender replied, though he kept a wary eye on Skinner's fists.

"I won't let you take him," Skinner replied with bravado.

"It's your choice, of course. You can keep him, if you are prepared to pay the consequences. Either you get out of his life, or certain facts, that you would prefer to keep private, will become very public," Spender said.

For a moment, Skinner was tempted to call Spender's bluff. Surely outing him would be as damaging to Mulder, and Spender had already admitted that the consortium didn't want Mulder to lose his job. Yet, he couldn't risk it. Couldn't risk his own career and reputation. He couldn't take the gamble with his own life, just to maintain a relationship that he wasn't even sure he really wanted.

"Do you really want to throw your life away over a 'queer', Skinner?" Spender asked softly. "He's not worth your career, is he?"

Skinner glared at his nemesis. The idea of losing Fox was as painful as a blow in the gut. Yet the word 'queer' echoed endlessly through his head, reminding him of what he had to lose.

"No," Skinner agreed finally. "No, he's not."

~~~

Arriving home at 5.30pm, Mulder rushed to turn the oven on and thrust a casserole inside to warm up. He had taken to cooking at the weekends and freezing the meals, taking them out to defrost in the morning. That way he could ensure that Skinner always came home to a hot dinner.

He set the table for one, placed his own bowls on the floor, ready to be filled, and rushed to the bathroom to prepare himself for Skinner's homecoming.

By the time Skinner arrived, the apartment was filled with the appetizing smell of stew, and Mulder was kneeling in position, a happy welcoming smile on his face.

For a moment, the scene took Skinner's breath away. He was tempted to put it off, have one last quiet dinner, one last 'play' session, one last frantic fuck. Yet, he was undoubtedly being watched. Someone would be lurking, waiting to report whether Mulder left.

He steeled himself, making his face assume a mask of wrath, even as his stomach churned as he saw the welcoming smile begin to slip off Mulder's face and be replaced by quaking worry.

Mulder's fearful eyes flickered uncertainly to the files that Skinner brandished at him.

"What the FUCK is this crap?" Skinner yelled, throwing the files at Mulder.

Mulder flinched as they struck him. The contents spilled and scattered on the floor around his shaking body, and he whimpered in confusion, identifying his painstakingly typed work.

"How dare you hand in work like this? The UFO at Roswell WAS a weather balloon? The recent sightings in New Mexico are due to solar flares? The disappearances in the Bermuda Triangle are due to a deep sea trench of magnetic ore that pulls planes out of the sky? The 'vampire' deaths in Baltimore were done by a lone serial killer with a suction pump, who then conveniently performed suttee in the street by dousing himself in petrol, hence his burning to death in the daylight? Do I need to continue?" Skinner shouted as Mulder tearfully tried to gather the files back into a neat pile.

"You said I - I mean, I thought - I wanted to - I - I thought you'd be pleased," Mulder finally choked out.

"Get dressed," Skinner snapped.

Mulder just looked at him blankly, his hazel eyes darting in bewilderment.

"I SAID GET DRESSED," Skinner yelled, taking a step forwards and raising his fist.

Mulder scrambled backwards, managing to get to his feet as he reached the doorway and fled. A couple of minutes later he was back in t-shirt and jeans. He hadn't even stopped to remove the butt plug or cock-cage and his crotch was vividly outlined against the thin faded denim.

Skinner swallowed, quickly averting his gaze so that he could do what he had to do.

"Now pick up your SHIT, and get the fuck out of MY home," Skinner growled.

Mulder blinked once, his face filled with confused disbelief, then he lurched forward, throwing himself at Skinner's feet and desperately hugging Skinner's legs.

"I'm sorry, sorry, oh god I'm sorry," he gasped, nuzzling his head into Skinner's groin suggestively.

Unable to detach himself from Mulder's frantic grasp, and mindful of Mulder's still fragile jaw, Skinner took the opportunity to quickly unfasten Mulder's collar and then as it's removal registered and Mulder jerked back in horror, Skinner used the leather to strike him viciously across the back of the head.

Mulder yelped and released him, but made no move to obey his order to leave. He was trembling with fear, but convinced that if he just stayed put, Skinner would change his mind.

Instead, Skinner took the files in one hand, Mulder's hair in the other, and simply threw him out of the front door.

Then he sat on his sofa, trying to ignore the banging on the door. When it faded to piteous moans and whimpers, interspersed with the odd frantic scratching, he gave up and turned the TV on high volume.

An hour later, he checked the corridor. Mulder was curled up in his doorway, shivering. It occurred to him that Mulder didn't even have a key to his old apartment, let alone any shoes on.

He filled a carrier bag with Mulder's possessions, added a ten dollar note for a taxi, opened the door and threw it at Mulder's feet.

At the opening of the door, Mulder had jerked upright, his eyes full of hope. The bag crashing at his feet convinced him Skinner was serious.

"I'm sorry," he tried again.

"Do you really want me any MORE pissed off with you?" Skinner replied, and slammed the door.

At midnight, when Skinner checked the corridor again, Mulder had left.

~~~

Part Ten

Mulder flinched from the familiar stranger who had jumped from the shadows of his unlit apartment, as every one of his nightmares was brought to life into the single form of the Assassin.

The rapidly encroaching darkness was making it hard for him to think, let alone figure out a way to get past the figure who stood between him and the front door.

"What do you want?" he gasped, his heart still thudding with the shock of Krycek's sudden appearance.

"I've come to check out my new purchase," Krycek grinned.

"What?" Mulder asked, completely confused.

"He sold you to me," Krycek said bluntly.

Mulder felt the room sway around him as the meaning of Krycek's words finally sank in.

Skinner wasn't coming back.

For days he had diligently worked on his rejected reports, huddled for hours over his computer, until he could barely see. Writing and re-writing until everything was so perfect that he was sure Skinner would be impressed with him, would forgive him.

Day after day, he had nervously marched to Skinner's office, only for Kim to take his amended reports and tell him that Skinner wasn't in. He had even gone several times to Skinner's apartment, banging on the door, pleading through the letter box, once even sleeping in the doorway, sure that Skinner would finally tire of pretending that he wasn't in.

Kim had eventually taken him aside, feeling so sorry for him that she finally admitted that Skinner had taken an unexpected leave of absence and had gone to Hawaii.

Skinner still hadn't returned his ATM card or switched his apartment's services back on. He hadn't eaten for days. Skinner's $10 was long gone, as were the tins of Alpo that he had found still stacked on his dusty kitchen table. His apartment was freezing and he had no hot water.

He was having to wash and shave in the men's room at work just to try and create a semblance of normality.

Yet, still, he had been sure it was just one of Skinner's games. That if he just worked hard and suffered in silence, without complaint, that finally Skinner would forgive him.

Every night he had returned to the frigid, terrifying darkness of his apartment and prayed for his cell phone to ring.

But now, Krycek was telling him that the phone call would never come.

A tear escaped and rolled down Mulder's cheek.

"I belong to him," Mulder finally whispered in denial. "He's coming back for me."

"He said you were a worthless slut, and he didn't want you anymore, so I could take you off his hands," Krycek replied coldly, watching the color drain from Mulder's cheeks.

"Hey, it's okay. I got you cheap, so I don't care that you are used goods," Krycek smirked.

"Cheap?" Mulder repeated, his voice filled with hurt and outrage. He loved Skinner, had given him everything, even his soul. He knew he had fucked up, had failed to live up to Skinner's hopes, but even so, how could the bastard have just *sold* him?

"I don't believe you," he spat at Krycek.

"I'm beginning to think that I wasted my money. He said you were obedient, that you were tame. You sure as hell don't seem tame to me. I don't need this shit. I'm out of here," Krycek announced, rising to his feet and striding towards the door.

Mulder shuddered. Suddenly the idea of being left alone again, rudderless and confused, was more than he could bear. What if Krycek was telling the truth? What if Skinner was never coming back? The dark walls of the unlit apartment closed in on him, choking and suffocating him.

Suddenly he jumped to his feet and raced after Krycek,

"I'm sorry. I'll be good, Sir. Please don't leave me here alone," he begged.

Krycek peered into Mulder's face, drinking in the other man's fear and confusion, sensing the near-madness that lurked behind Mulder's desperate gaze. Mulder's hazel eyes went huge with fear as Krycek shot forward and pinned him against the wall. The cold, prosthetic fingers were like a steel-vice around his neck.

"Strip," Krycek ordered.

Wide-eyed, Mulder began to obey, ripping the buttons of his shirt in eagerness to prove his compliance. He unfastened his trousers and let them drop to his ankles, revealing his engorged cock.

Krycek blinked with surprise at the evidence of Mulder's interest. He squeezed Mulder's throat bruisingly and Mulder moaned. Krycek saw his cock jerk and his eyes dilate in response to the pain, and Mulder's arousal made his own cock surge to life.

He spun Mulder around and saw that Mulder's ass was stretched by a butt plug.

"What the fuck is this?" he demanded, ripping the thick rubber out of Mulder's ass.

"In case he came," Mulder whimpered pathetically. "He - he liked me clean and prepared. I - I wanted - I wanted to show him I was waiting for him," he confessed, tears of humiliation and hurt filling his eyes.

Krycek shrugged. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he aimed at Mulder's stretched, lubricated ass and in one flawless thrust, he buried himself inside the hot passage.

Mulder gasped at the invasion. His ass was Skinner's, he couldn't do this, couldn't let another man take what was Skinner's, he told himself. Yet, Skinner didn't want him, had thrown him out, sold him and he needed this so much, this feeling of being taken, being owned.

He gave up trying to think and just gave himself up to the sensation, relaxing his ass and thrusting back, forcing Krycek's cock deeper inside with a groan of unmistakable need. Any thoughts of resistance fled as Krycek's thick cock rubbed, stretched and filled him, making him complete.

"Oh God," he gasped, "Please, harder, please."

Jesus, Krycek thought to himself, this was too damned easy. He hadn't truly believed that Mulder was the broken slut that his boss had portrayed, yet all it had taken was the slide of his cock into Mulder's ass to make the agent give up all pretense of resistance.

Mulder was moaning, rubbing himself up and down his cock, urging him into action.

Krycek grinned. He was going to enjoy this. Mulder's groans would soon turn into howls. He slammed into Mulder's ass so hard that the agent's oddly deformed hands could barely stop him from crashing head first into the wall.

Still buried in the squirming man, he frog-marched him to the couch, bent him over the arm until he was at a comfortable height, and then he began to pound in repeatedly until Mulder was biting at the cushion to muffle his screams.

To his amazement, Mulder bucked under him and came, sending ripples of delicious friction against Krycek's cock. He pulled out, unwilling to be milked yet by Mulder's hungry ass. He didn't wait for Mulder to stop his shuddering; he grabbed the agent, threw him onto his back, his ass now dangling over the armrest, and pushed Mulder's legs back until his knees touched his chest.

"Hold them," he snarled, and Mulder obediently wrapped his arms around his own thighs and pulled his legs back and open, exposing his hole. Krycek thrust back in, ripping a scream out of Mulder's throat. From this angle, he could reach deeper, twisting his hips to corkscrew into Mulder's depths.

Mulder's eyes were glazed with pain, his cheeks stained almost purple as he gasped for breath, but his cock had already sprung back to life, weeping as Krycek reamed him repeatedly with his furious thrusts until Mulder came again with a shuddering scream.

Mulder's threshing tipped Krycek over the edge and, with a roar, he came inside him, filling his ass with his cum, collapsing on top of him and crushing him into the couch.

They lay there for several minutes, both trying to catch their breaths, the sweat of their bodies mingling, the air thick with the musk of their rut.

~~~~~

Mulder was terrified of the idea of belonging to Krycek, but far more intimidated by the idea of being completely alone again. He had only managed to struggle through the last week because of his belief that Skinner was simply punishing him and would soon be back. He couldn't survive alone, couldn't cope with the idea of being abandoned.

Part of him also doubted Krycek's claim of ownership, yet when Krycek produced his very own well-worn dog collar, all his doubts disappeared. Krycek had the collar; Krycek therefore owned him.

"What are you, Fox?"

"Your slave, Sir," Mulder offered desperately.

"Master," Krycek growled warningly.

Mulder shuddered. Skinner had never actually made him use that term of address. Then again, Krycek clearly wasn't Skinner. He dipped his eyes in defeat.

"Your slave, Master,"

"What else are you?"

Mulder blinked in confusion.

"I don't understand," he confessed.

Krycek slapped him across the face. The blow wasn't particularly hard, but it connected with Mulder's recently healed jaw, making him yelp in terror as pain knifed through his face.

"YOU," *slap* "ARE" *slap* "MY" *slap* "WORTHLESS" *slap* "SLUT", Krycek yelled. "Say it!"

"I am your worthless slut, Master," Mulder whispered, closing his eyes against his burning tears.

Krycek chuckled.

"Come here, slut," he purred, dangling the collar and Mulder's eyes snapped open as he heard the buckle jangling. His miserable face was transformed by a shy, hopeful smile as Krycek beckoned him over and he leant blissfully towards the leather. He groaned happily as Krycek leaned over and fastened the leather around his neck.

The week of uncertainty, of bewildered loneliness, was magically dissipated as the leather wrapped around his neck, where it belonged, and he sighed, leaning his head against Krycek's thigh in gratitude.

"Get dressed," Krycek snapped.

Mulder rose gracefully to his feet and gave Krycek an imploring gaze. Krycek realised he was waiting for further instructions.

"Jeans, no briefs, t-shirt, no shoes," Krycek said, getting into the spirit of things and roaring with laughter as Mulder scampered off to obey.

When Mulder returned in jeans so tight that his cock and balls were clearly outlined against the whitened fabric of the crotch, Krycek smirked again. The old bastard had at least appreciated how to show Mulder to advantage, he decided.

"Turn around," he ordered, and as Mulder obeyed, Krycek swallowed at the way that the jeans hugged Mulder's thin but muscular ass and the seam disappeared right into his crack.

"Come," he snapped gruffly, as his cock stirred at the sight.

He drove Mulder downtown and pulled up in a run-down street outside the boarded up windows of a tattoo parlor. He banged insistently on the door until a shutter slid open and a voice emerged from within.

"Who the fuck is it?"

"Your fucking funeral, if you don't open the door, " Krycek growled back.

Mulder heard the heavy clunk of a bolt drawn back and the door opened to reveal a heavily tattooed man of middle age, his filthy string vest proudly displaying a gut so fat he looked pregnant.

"Kry, you old bastard," the ape grinned, revealing a mouth full of rotted, broken teeth.

"Fatter than ever, huh, Slade?" Krycek replied with an easy grin.

"And who's the bitch?"

"My new slut," Krycek smirked as Mulder dropped his head, his face flushing with humiliation.

"The usual?"

"Nah, something special for Fox, I think," Krycek replied. "Get your fucking ass inside, or start walking and don't come back," he hissed at Mulder, swiping his ass viciously.

Mulder yelped and scurried into the shop.

"Strip," Krycek ordered.

Mulder looked helplessly at Krycek and then at Slade.

He had been stripped at the club, of course, but he had never been told to strip in front of a stranger by his master before, and he baulked, only to shudder at the cold rage in Krycek's eyes at his defiance.

With trembling fingers, he peeled off his t-shirt, trying to ignore Slade's chuckle of appreciation. He locked pleading eyes with Krycek, but then his eyes fell against the merciless glare of his master and he unbuttoned his jeans and let them fall.

"Nice, VERY nice," Slade purred, stepping forward and running his hands over Mulder's trembling body as though inspecting an animal in an auction. His fingers took hold of Mulder's left nipple and squeezed viciously.

Mulder squealed in pain, his cock jerking to immediate attention as Slade brutally twisted his nub.

"Very nice indeed," Slade muttered, his other hand reaching down and cupping Mulder's balls, testing their weight, his thumb and forefinger digging into Mulder's scrotum, forcing his balls apart.

"You want a bull-ring?" he suggested, "Suit him, I reckon."

Krycek considered thoughtfully before he replied.

"Yeah, you're right, it would."

"You'll have to watch for infection, though. It's a major piercing, nasty if it goes bad."

"Just do it," Krycek replied.

"Nipples and cock too?"

"Just nipples and a cock tat."

Slade grinned, "What do you want?"

"Tell him, Fox," Krycek smirked.

Mulder's tear-filled eyes looked at Krycek in confusion.

"Tell him what you are, Fox," Krycek snarled.

Slowly the confusion on Fox's face was replaced by humiliation.

"Please, Master," he begged, "don't make me say it."

"TELL HIM," Krycek growled, raising a hand threateningly.

"I - I'm a - a wor-wor-worthless slut," Mulder whispered brokenly.

Slade gave a huge laugh, his belly rolling with mirth.

"Slut, huh? Yeah, that'll fit even on your little dick," he sniggered.

Mulder was led into a back room. Beside a table filled with instruments reminiscent of a dentist's was a gynecological chair.

He panicked and tried to turn back, but Krycek gripped the back of his neck and pushed him forward.

"Sit," Krycek ordered and Mulder forced his trembling ass into the seat.

Slade lifted his legs one by one and placed his feet into the stirrups and then he cranked a handle until Mulder's legs were lifted high and wide apart, giving him free access to Mulder's cock, balls and ass.

Slade poked a finger at Mulder's swollen anus, enjoying Mulder's gasp of pain.

"Having fun with this one, huh?" he grinned at Krycek.

"I intend to have more," Krycek replied and Slade sniggered.

"Better strap him down, Kry, he isn't quite tame yet, I reckon."

Krycek looked thoughtfully at Mulder and decided Slade was right. He walked around the back of the chair and began to fasten straps around Mulder's arms and chest.

"Please, Master, I'll be good, Master," Mulder whimpered as Krycek moved to bind his ankles to the stirrups.

Krycek ignored him. Unlike Mulder, he knew what was coming next.

"Shave or wax?" Slade asked cheerfully.

Krycek looked at the helpless Mulder and smirked.

"Wax," he announced and enjoyed Mulder's look of total confusion turn into horrified understanding as Slade reached for a pot and began to slather hot wax over his balls and groin.

"No, no, no, please," he begged as the hot wax spread over him.

Slade slapped thin strips of cloth onto the wax and pressed down firmly. Mulder sighed with relief as the heat began to cool only to scream as Slade ripped the cloth back off, tearing out his pubic hair by the root.

He repeated the procedure until Mulder's groin was completely hairless, the skin bright red. Krycek got tired of Mulder's agonised howls half way through and produced a ball gag, forcing it into Mulder's mouth mid-scream and fastening it tightly behind Mulder's head.

Slade wiped Mulder's balls with alcohol and then reached for a large clamp. He screwed it down on Mulder's scrotum until his balls were splayed apart and the scrotal skin was pinched flat in the middle.

Mulder's eyes were almost bulging out of his face with agony, his wails of distress trying to escape around the ball gag in pathetic gasps.

Slade wedged a wooden block under Mulder's balls and then produced a sharp pointed 1cm thick spike, with a blunt handle, and then a small hammer. He positioned the spike just below the clamp, pushed the point into Mulder's skin and then struck the end a heavy, precise blow.

The spike pierced through the skin of Mulder's scrotum, back out and buried itself into the wooden block. Mulder passed out, only to be slapped awake by Krycek.

"You don't want to miss the next bit, Fox," he mocked.

Blood began to spurt from edges of the wound. Slade attached two electrical wires to the metal spike, stood back and pressed a switch. The metal heated, and the smell of burning flesh filled the room, as the edges of the wound were sutured closed.

Slade waited for the metal to cool before wrenching out the spike and pouring alcohol over the wound. He wiped it away and removed the wooden block to reveal a perfect, sealed hole.

"Beautiful," Krycek breathed, pushing his pinky finger into the hole and wiggling it around.

"Gold or cheap-shit?" Slade asked as he rummaged in a drawer.

"Cheap shit, he's a cheap slut," Krycek replied cruelly.

Slade produced a large silver bull's nose ring, eased the open end over Mulder's flattened scrotum and through the hole. Then he welded the ends together, again causing Mulder's skin to sizzle and blacken.

He released the clamp and Mulder's balls collapsed back together, huddling in the cage of the thick ring.

"Remember, keep it clean and sterilized. Don't put too much pressure on it until it is fully healed. If you rip it out, you will castrate him," Slade remarked. "Messy, and usually fatal."

"Yeah, well I'm sure Fox will remember that, if I forget," Krycek grinned.

To be honest, he wasn't sure whether Mulder was even following the conversation. His pain-glazed eyes were staring into some inner-space, there was a crooked smile on his face and his muffled whimpers seemed almost subconscious.

He didn't even react to the gun that pierced his nipples, only the mad twitching of his pectorals suggesting the sharp, intense pain of the piercing.

Krycek decided on gold for the nipple rings and a taut chain looping them together.

Then Slade wiped the Alcohol on Mulder's penis, hissing irritably as it shriveled in his hand.

"I need it erect," he muttered. "Should have done it before he spaced out."

He bustled off and returned with a vibrator. Covering it in KY, he pushed it impatiently up Mulder's ass.

"That woke him," Krycek sniggered as Mulder's head tossed wild-eyed against the brutal invader.

Slade turned the vibrator to its highest setting and adjusted it until the end was pushed against Mulder's prostate. Almost immediately, Mulder's hips began to thrash. Once he saw Mulder's cock surge to life, he took a leather strap and wrapped it tightly around the base of Mulder's shaft, trapping the erection in place, and then went to remove the vibrator.

"Leave it in, it will keep him awake and I want him to watch this," Krycek instructed.

"I can't work if he keeps bucking like this," Slade replied crushingly.

"I said leave it, " Krycek growled.

Slade shrugged and just turned the speed down so that Mulder's writhing eased to the occassional shudder. He swiped alcohol over Mulder's engorged cock. Fresh tears poured down Mulder's face.

"Stings like fuck, doesn't it?" Slade chuckled. "If you think that hurts, just wait for the needle."

Krycek gloated as Mulder's tear-ravaged face turned pleadingly towards him. He had never dreamed that payback could taste so sweet. He stepped forwards and gave a sharp tug on the chain that connected Mulder's nipples, waiting for Mulder to shudder in agony.

The sensation, combined with the stimulation of his prostate, had the opposite effect. Mulder arched his spine, his pupils dilating and his nipples shooting to rigid attention as Krycek teased the swollen nubs.

"Jesus, Kry. Stop playing with him. I'm trying to work here," Slade grumbled.

Shaking his head in puzzlement over Mulder's reaction, Krycek stepped back from his new toy and watched Slade as he painstakingly etched the letters into Mulder's cock. By the time he was finished, Mulder's groin was so swollen that Slade had to cut the leather thong loose with a sharp knife. He covered Mulder's cock and ball sack with antiseptic cream and then wrapped cling film around Mulder's shaft.

"That will keep the cream on. You need to keep it clean and well-lubricated for a couple of days. It will scab over by Friday and then you can let the air get to it. As for the ball-ring, I'll give him a shot, but keep the ring lubricated and treat the wound until you are sure it won't fester. It'll turn black by tonight. Don't be concerned by a bit of puss, but if it gets really rotten, get him down to ER or he'll lose his balls."

"He doesn't need them," Krycek shrugged, enjoying the look of complete panic on Mulder's previously aroused face.

Slade cranked the handle until Mulder's ass was raised off the chair, removed the vibrator, and then emptied a hypodermic into Mulder's butt.

"What's that?" Krycek snarled dangerously. "I told you no painkillers."

Slade raised his hands innocently.

"Just an antibiotic, Kry," he assured nervously as Krycek's green eyes flashed in fury. He hoped the little slut was smart enough not to betray his addition of a local anesthetic. Whatever Krycek thought, there was no way in hell that his slut could walk out of there without some of his agony eased.

As a sensation of numbness crept through his traumatised groin, Mulder's teary eyes met Slade's in gratitude. Such a small, secret kindness completely overwhelmed Mulder, and he began to sob.

Krycek snarled impatiently, began to unbuckle Mulder's restraints and finally ripped the gag out of Mulder's mouth. Slade lowered the stirrups until Krycek could slide Mulder's legs out.

"Get up, Fox," Krycek ordered.

Mulder tried to obey, but as soon as he attempted to stand, his vision blurred and he collapsed dizzily back on to the chair, whimpering in dazed agony.

Krycek narrowed his eyes but said nothing, instead turning to Slade to settle the bill. Once their business was concluded, Krycek finally turned to Mulder, took his chin in his hand and forced Mulder's eyes to meet his.

"I am getting in the car, Fox. I will wait for you for exactly five minutes. If your butt is not in the passenger seat by then, I will leave you here. Do you understand?"

Slade rubbed his own groin excitedly. He knew Krycek well enough to understand that the assassin never made a threat that he wasn't prepared to back up. He began to regret his own kindness with the anesthetic. He could think of a lot better things to do with the pretty slut than pierce and tattoo him.

On the other hand, for a couple of minutes, as Mulder just sat in a haze of pain, watching the door Krycek had stepped through, with bewildered, agonised eyes, it didn't seem as though the slut was going anywhere.

Then just as Slade began to unzip his jeans, Mulder gave a yelp of terror and scrambled to his feet, staggering after Krycek like an abandoned, fear-filled puppy. Bent over almost double, his legs splayed like an old cowboy's to ease the torture in his groin, Mulder stumbled to the door and crashed through it, still naked, onto the street.

Krycek had already started the car engine, and seeing Mulder in the rear-view mirror, he grinned nastily and began to pull away in first.

Sobbing in pain and terror, Mulder half walked, half-crawled after him. It was only when Mulder finally collapsed in defeat that Krycek cut the engine and waited. Sobbing, Mulder dragged himself the last few meters until his hand clasped the door handle and then he panicked as the door refused to open.

For a moment, Krycek was tempted to drive off, leaving Mulder naked and abandoned in the ghetto. It didn't take much imagination to picture what would happen to Mulder in a neighborhood like this.

On the other hand, how the hell would he explain it to Spender?

Besides, why should he let have anyone else have the pleasure of killing Mulder? Perhaps Skinner had already managed to break Mulder, but Krycek was going to go one step further, he was going to turn him.

Before this was over, Mulder would have not only given up his own self-respect, he would have betrayed everything and everyone he cared about.

When all this was over, when the consortium had finished bleeding Mulder's usefulness dry, Krycek was going to take great delight in making Mulder take his own life in front of him.

He unlocked the door, and Mulder scrambled in, his face screwed tight with agony, but his eyes bright with gratitude.

"Next time you disobey me, there won't be a second chance, Fox," Krycek growled and was satisfied by Mulder's flinch.

"I'm sorry, Master," Mulder croaked, his throat too raw and dry for him to speak easily.

Krycek pulled the car up in a deserted alleyway.

"Get out and get dressed, " he instructed, passing Mulder's clothes from the back seat. He had had the presence of mind to collect them, realising that Mulder wouldn't have time.

Mulder obeyed, pulling the t-shirt over his shivering, sweat streaked chest. He winced as the fabric caught on his swollen nipples but it wasn't until he tried to get his jeans up over his hips that he began to sway dizzily, as an overload of pain blackened his vision.

The jeans, already a size too small, couldn't possibly fasten over his swollen groin. The chunky ball-ring alone took more room than the constricting fabric wanted to allow and he couldn't even bear to touch his agonised penis, let alone crush it into the denim.

"I can't," he finally whimpered in defeat.

Krycek watched his struggle and came to the same conclusion. Damn, he should have thought of this, he realised. There was no way that Mulder would be able to wear anything around his groin for a couple of days.

He wasn't bothered about Mulder's pain, but even he could see that Mulder was almost blacking out just from trying to obey.

Time for a different kind of lesson, he decided.

"I told you to put your jeans on," he said coldly and watched Mulder's face crumble. "If I allow you to disobey me now, you will have to pay a penalty."

Hope flared in Mulder's eyes.

"Yes, Master, anything," he whimpered desperately.

"I can't drive through the city with a half-naked man in the car. You will have to get in the trunk." Krycek told him.

To Krycek's complete amazement, Mulder went hysterical.

"No, no, no, no, no," he chanted wildly, his eyes rolling with panic.

Krycek smirked. It had pissed the hell out of him that Mulder had seemed to almost enjoy the pain of being pierced and tattooed. He had wanted Mulder to howl and scream in agony, not get turned on. This whimpering, terrified Mulder was far more satisfying to him

"You claustrophobic?" he demanded.

"Not the dark, please not the dark, no dark, no, no, no," Mulder gasped.

"Get in the trunk," Krycek repeated firmly.

Not only did Mulder fail to obey him, but when Krycek decided to simply man-handle him in, Mulder went crazy, kicking and biting, his eyes so glazed with terror that Krycek doubted he was even aware of fighting him.

Krycek just slapped Mulder's cock. Mulder's eyes rolled up in his head and he fainted. Krycek threw his limp body in the trunk and slammed the lid with satisfaction. Now he knew that Mulder was terrified of the dark, it opened up a whole world of new opportunities to torment him, he decided.

Not wanting Mulder to waste the experience, he made sure that he banged the car over several pot holes. A faint scream of terror eventually told him that his passenger was awake again, so with a wide grin he turned the car and headed back to Mulder's apartment building, loudly blessing Spender for this sweet assignment.

~~~

Part Eleven

In the privacy of the underground garage beneath Mulder's apartment block, Krycek drilled a small hole in the side of the trunk, enough to let a minimum of fresh air into the dark, dank space without allowing prying eyes to view within. It was just enough oxygen to prevent Mulder from asphyxiating through the hours of his incarceration, but not enough to prevent him becoming light-headed and dazed.

His semi-conscious state was a relief as the painkiller wore off and his ballooning groin caught fire. Thirst raged in his raw throat, his lips blistering and then bleeding as he licked at the chapped dryness repeatedly.

Krycek left him in the trunk until the early hours of the morning, obviously not willing to take the risk of carrying him up to his apartment until the other occupants had all settled in for the night.

The pain in his balls became so intense that he found himself unable to stop himself clawing at his groin, like an animal gnawing at its own limbs to escape a trap, only to immediately scream and recoil from his own touch. By the time Krycek came for him, his hazel eyes were stark with agony and an unmistakable madness.

Krycek said nothing, merely picking up his tortured body, wrapping it loosely in a blanket, and carrying him to the elevator.

Mulder writhed and twitched in his arms, the light touch of the fabric on his swollen groin feeling like an army of biting ants crawling over his cock and balls. He lost consciousness only to wake hours later and find himself alone in his apartment.

He realised that Krycek hadn't even bothered to restrain him. He had left him on the couch, a jug of water, a bottle of Tylenol and his cell-phone within easy reach, and had disappeared without even a note.

He grasped for the water, drinking the whole jug in one go, mindless of the way the now tepid water spilled down his cheeks and neck as he poured faster than his desperate throat could swallow. The water eased his raw, dehydrated throat, only to almost immediately move to his groin, as his bladder began to scream its protest to the filling of his stomach.

In the dim light he could see his cock stood at attention, purple and black inside its thin clear plastic wrapping, rearing away from the swollen, blackened balloon of flesh that housed his balls. The thick ring cut into the bruised flesh, its metallic coldness almost soothing against the fevered heat of the piercing.

The pain in his nipples was almost an afterthought, a bare tingling compared with the waves of excruciating torment from his abused groin. Unable to do anything but endure, he rode the waves, finding a rhythm in his suffering, learning the relationship between the beating of his heart and the surging of the pain, until he found himself almost detached from it. He found himself floating in a place where time had no meaning, and all there was, all there had ever been, was this throbbing heat of ripped nerve endings.

An insistent noise echoing through his empty apartment finally forced him back to reality. It was well past dawn. The morning sun had risen high enough that its rays were creeping through the dirty windowpane and bathing his body with golden light.

He only realised the noise was the shrill cry of his cell phone when the caller gave up and the bare apartment was again shrouded in an oppressive silence.

He wondered dully who the caller had been. Now he knew that Skinner wasn't coming back, it didn't seem to matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore.

He stared for a long time at the phone, imagining himself dialing for help, for an ambulance, for someone to come and take away the raging pain that made conscious thought almost impossible.

He couldn't do it. He told himself that it was embarrassment, humiliation, but the truth was he knew beyond doubt that Krycek leaving him the phone was a test. Mulder was more afraid of angering his new master than of facing the pain. If he called a medic, the physical pain would be taken away, but Krycek would never return and he would be alone.

Without the lifeline of Skinner, facing the idea of complete abandonment, the agony in his body seemed insignificant.

It finally occurred to him to check the phone to see who had called. Perhaps it *was* Skinner, perhaps he had changed his mind. On the other hand, what if it was Krycek? What if his failure to pick up the phone drove his new master to further acts of violence? In terror, he reached out and grasped the handset. The tiny display blinked a single word, Kersh.

He finally realised that it was Thursday and he should have been at work.

He laughed hysterically at the realisation that he hadn't even remembered that he still had a job. In little more than 24-hours, Krycek had achieved what Skinner had never truly managed. Mulder didn't think he ever wanted to return to work again.

What was the point of being an FBI agent, fighting the sick evil monsters of society and saving the innocents, when you were the personal slave of the worst monster of all? He was a joke, he decided. His whole life was a bizarre masquerade and he was too tired to pretend anymore.

He idly wondered how long he could be AWOL before he was fired by AD Kersh. It didn't even worry him. What was the point of his job anyway? Skinner still had his ATM card, he was slowly starving to death in his barren, unheated apartment and it was only a matter of time before his landlord threw him out on his butt for non-payment of rent.

It was up to his new master to take care of him now, he decided, vaguely wondering when Krycek would return to claim him and not even trying to imagine what manner of hell his new life might be in Krycek's hands. He would be taken care of; he wouldn't have to make any more decisions. Krycek would take control and Mulder would be able to lose himself in his servitude.

The overwhelming pain in his balls only helped him to descend into sub-space and he drifted off again into a feverish fantasy of his new master returning and deciding that he had suffered so well, so nobly, that he would take the pain away.

His waking-dream was rudely interrupted again by the shrill shriek of his cell phone. He shook his head in confusion and tried to focus on the display. Kersh again. He started to drop the phone in disinterest, when suddenly he realised that his failure to answer might drive someone to come looking for him.

Fear clenched in his bowels as he looked again at his swollen groin. The multi-hued wound made him flush with embarrassment. He would rather die than let anyone find him like this, he decided.

He had no choice except to answer. He told Kersh that he had a flu bug and probably wouldn't get back until Monday. It was obvious that the other man didn't believe him, yet he merely said he would expect him in his office to discuss the matter further on Monday morning.

Mulder understood the unspoken threat of Kersh's disinterest. By Monday night, he would probably be fired, and although only minutes before he had embraced the idea, the cold reality of it terrified him.

Suddenly the future looked too grim to bear, a nightmare spiral into further pain and depravity, deprived of even the quiet interludes of his work.

He was like a junkie, he realised. Skinner had addicted him to pain and servitude, and then had abandoned him to a cold-turkey withdrawal that had nearly destroyed him. Now Krycek was offering him his fatal fix and he was out of control with his craving, prepared to whore himself to his worst enemy just for the promise of relief.

He reached blindly for the painkillers, suddenly determined to take them all. To end this now and forever. With Skinner, there had at least been love; with Krycek, there was nothing but the bitterness of degradation. He would be better off dead, he decided.

The lightness of the bottle mocked him. He rattled it, realising that it was nearly empty. His master had only left him enough tablets to ease his pain, not end it.

He struggled with the childproof cap, his trembling sweat-drenched fingers slipping repeatedly over the plastic. His increasing desperation only undermining his efforts until he was whimpering in distress. When the cap finally connected with the threads and eased open, he was so shocked that he dropped the bottle and the contents spilled onto the floor, rolling under the couch. He began to cry in earnest, craving the pills but unable to force his body to move from its prone position.

Then his angry bladder released its load, the hot liquid burning his thighs and soaking into the cushions. He was beyond embarrassment by now, barely realising what he had done, only aware that the pain in his groin had been somewhat eased by the release of the pressure.

Like an animal, he lay in his own filth and whimpered like an abandoned puppy as the hours rolled on and still his master failed to return.

By Friday morning, raging thirst and hunger finally forced him to try to get off the couch again, but movement was impossible. Despite the antibiotics, his ball sac was weeping with pus and through the cling film on his cock, he could see black scabs forming on the length of his shaft.

He wept with a combination of relief and despair as he found that the water jug had been refilled and a small pile of painkillers was on the floorboards, next to a tube of antiseptic cream and a bottle of Lucozade. His master had obviously visited in the night, but hadn't even woken him.

He interpreted Krycek's decision to let him sleep not as a kindness, but rather a message that he was too damaged for Krycek to waste more time than that necessary to bring him the medicine and water. Even so, just this tiny amount of concern warmed Mulder's heart. His empty belly growled with disappointment at Krycek's failure to leave him any food, yet he was already lying in his own excrement. The realisation that food would just mean more waste, made him decide that hunger wasn't too great a price to pay after all.

He understood his Master's message. He had to look after himself, he realised. Obviously Krycek would not come for him until he was better, so he had to make the effort to get well. The Tylenol worked quickly in his empty stomach, dulling the sharp edges of the pain enough that he could at least bear to rub the cream into his reddened nipples.

The gold rings had crusted in place and easing them free brought fresh-tears of pain to Mulder's eyes. Yet, he couldn't even bear to think of his groin yet. Concentrating on making the nipple-rings roll freely, allowed him to put off dealing with his cock.

It took him the best part of an hour to unwrap the cling-film, when he had finally found the courage to take his self-ministrations down to his groin. Despite the cream that Slade had applied, the thin plastic had sunk into the scabs and become attached.

Mulder had to rip around the scabs, leaving the embedded plastic in place, and then applying the ointment over the top. At least the scabbing obscured the letters that had been tattooed, he noted with relief. Yet, just the memory of what had been permanently branded into his cock was enough to make Mulder collapse into a new fit of hysterical tears.

He was confused by the amount of scabbing. He had never been tattooed but was damn sure that the practice would have died out centuries before if it always caused this much damage. He began to wonder whether Slade had used an infected needle. Perhaps his dick was going to become so infected that it would rot and fall off.

Then sense finally managed to overpower his panic. It was probably just because of where the tattoo had been done, he eventually realised. Unlike arms and legs, there was no protective layer of fat on a penis. The pain and damage was most likely due to the sensitive nature of his cock, rather than proof of infection.

He couldn't comfort himself the same way about his balls though. There was no mistaking the angry red heat of his scrotum and the yellowish pus that dribbled around the burnt edges of the piercing. Trying to apply the ointment to the wound was an exercise in futility.

Each time his tentative fingers touched the torn flesh, the resultant backlash of agony made him black out. After the third attempt, he tried a different method. He used his left hand to carefully hold his penis out of the way and with his right hand squeezed the ointment out of the tube directly onto the hole.

The pain of the cold ointment touching his skin made him pass out again, but when he came to, he saw a small puddle of cream around the silver ring, and could feel it melting around the edges, into the wound.

He spent the rest of the day applying more ointment and teasing at the ring, once even managing to make the ball-ring move half an inch through the hole before he lost consciousness.

When he woke, the light indicated it was either twilight or early morning and Krycek was stood at his side. Mulder's heart began to race with a combination of fear and relief. He looked at his master's face and saw nothing but disgust in the fine features.

Krycek's nose wrinkled as he took in the smell of stale urine and shit.

The truth was that he knew Mulder had had no choice, and he was more concerned about possible infection than Mulder's smell, but he wasn't going to waste an opportunity to humiliate Mulder further.

"You shit yourself, you dirty little bastard," he snapped and was satisfied by the deep flush of humiliation that crept from Mulder's neck to his ears.

"I'm sorry, Master," Mulder wept helplessly.

"Get up," Krycek ordered.

Mulder tried desperately to obey. The swelling in his groin was finally receding but, even so, there was no way he could convince his legs to move.

Krycek quietly watched his struggle, seeing the perspiration gather on Mulder's still feverish forehead and pour like tears down his cheek bones. When it became obvious that Mulder couldn't obey, he lost patience and grabbed Mulder's hair. He wrapped his fingers through the sodden, greasy strands and then yanked him violently off the couch and onto the floor.

Krycek winced at the crack as Mulder's knees connected with the floorboards. Howling with pain, Mulder instinctively took his weight on his hands and knees, spreading his thighs as wide as possible to allow his groin to hang freely between his legs.

Aiming carefully, so that he didn't touch Mulder's balls, Krycek gave Mulder a swift kick on his shit-smeared ass. Ignoring the other man's scream, he looked in distaste at his shoe and then walked around to Mulder's face.

"Clean it," he growled, and then laughed delightedly as Mulder's tear stained face dropped without argument and licked the shoe clean again.

"Now get your dirty ass in the shower," Krycek snarled and Mulder began to crawl towards the bathroom.

Krycek watched his slow, agonised progress and realised it would take him a good twenty minutes to traverse the ten meters or so. He made good use of the time, donning a throwaway plastic Mac and latex gloves and stripping the couch. He bundled the filthy cushions into black bin-liners and stacked the bags by the front door.

Next he fetched the axe he had left in the hall earlier, and began to chop the couch into pieces. By the time he had finished, Mulder was finally huddled in the tray of the shower stall. Krycek lowered and directed the nozzle so that the jet would be aimed at the crouching man and turned it on.

He stepped back swiftly to avoid the freezing water, and closed the door on Mulder's pathetic yelps. To be honest, he had forgotten that Mulder had no hot water. He hadn't intended the shower to be a punishment, it was simply a necessity. On the other hand, he couldn't leave Mulder in that filthy state and a bit of cold water wouldn't hurt him.

He left the shower running and took care of taking the dismantled couch down to the furnace room in the basement. As he burnt Mulder's last and only piece of furniture, he considered his options. He had no intention of taking Mulder home with him for a couple more days. He was still 'decorating' Mulder's new room and, besides, Mulder wasn't going to be in any state to play until his groin healed.

He had intended to leave him without even a blanket, but after the chill of the shower, it was possible that Mulder's already weak body would succumb to hypothermia.

So he went back to his car and collected the traveling blanket from the trunk, and after a moment's thought, also collected the carpet from the passenger foot well. Then he returned to Mulder's apartment and, dropping the items by the door, retrieved his slave from the shower.

Mulder's skin was a frightening shade of pale blue, his teeth chattering wildly, as Krycek turned off the shower. He was, however, clean and furthermore, the raging heat of his balls seemed to have receded somewhat.

"Get back to the living room, Fox," Krycek ordered. He didn't wait to witness Mulder's torturous progress as he dragged himself out of the shower stall. Instead, he went ahead and checked Mulder's cell phone. To his surprise, Mulder hadn't even attempted to make an outwards call. Of course, the call barring he had put on the line would have prevented Mulder making anything but a 911, but he was still pleased that no attempt had been made.

He slipped the phone into his pocket, deciding there was no point in leaving Mulder with the temptation any longer. He hadn't been able to resist giving Mulder a possible out, just to test how far Skinner's conditioning had gone. Nevertheless, there was no point pushing his luck. He was treading on thin-ice with Spender as it was, he didn't want to have to explain how the fox had slipped the snare.

A small mewl of distress alerted him that Mulder had reached the door of the living room. His hazel eyes were huge with distress as he realised that his last item of property had gone. Without the couch, the room seemed doubly huge and forbidding.

"I wondered why Skinner took all your furniture away, Fox. But now I understand. You are just a filthy little animal. You aren't even house-trained. You don't deserve to own anything."

Tears trickled down Mulder's face. He was so cold he could barely think, in so much pain he could barely move, and now his only source of warmth and comfort was gone.

"I'm c-c-c-c-cold, Master," he finally stammered through his frozen lips, unable to stop the wild chattering of his teeth.

Krycek looked at him coldly, pretended to consider and then gave a small shrug.

"Do you want a blanket?" he asked.

Hope flared in Mulder's eyes. "Y-y-y-yes p-p-p-please, M-M-Master," he stuttered, his wet body shaking with cold.

Krycek unfastened his trousers, releasing his rigid cock.

"Come here, and earn it, Fox," he purred.

He enjoyed the understanding dawn in Mulder's face, and was almost disappointed with the immediate capitulation as Mulder began to crawl painfully towards him. He became too impatient to wait for Mulder's slow progress and met him half way, dragging Mulder's head up and thrusting his cock against the panting mouth.

Mulder opened wide and relaxed his throat instinctively, allowing Krycek's cock to slide easily down his throat until his chin was slapped by Krycek's heavy balls. He immediately began to suction, his tongue lapping at the thickness, his lips caressing the base of Krycek's shaft and his fingers creeping up to massage Krycek's balls.

The touch of the icy fingers was enough to almost make Krycek's balls burrow inside his abdomen.

"Only your mouth," he hissed, cuffing Mulder across the side of the head.

The blow knocked Mulder's head sideways, and unwittingly his teeth scraped Krycek's shaft. Krycek knew it was his own fault, but that didn't stop a red wave of anger sweeping him as pain seared his cock.

"You stupid bastard," he howled, pulling out of Mulder's mouth and striking him again, this time splitting Mulder's lip.

"I'm sorry, sorry, sorry," Mulder began to whimper helplessly as he realised he had done the cardinal sin of letting his teeth touch his master's skin.

To his relief, instead of beating him, which he knew he deserved, Krycek instead ordered him back down on his hands and knees and Mulder felt his ass breached by Krycek's cock.

Mulder sobbed with relief and confusion as his Master filled him. Despite his misdemeanor, Krycek was still giving him the gift that Skinner had always made him earn. The anomaly frightened him as much as it relieved him. It was only as Krycek's thrusts grew harder and deeper that the pain began, as Krycek's balls began to slap the back of his own ball-ring.

Despite his helpless howls of anguish, still Mulder found himself grateful for the pain. He understood this punishment; he deserved it and welcomed it. Krycek's final thrust of climax knocked Mulder down to the floor, and the impact on his groin sent a backlash of such pure agony that he spun into unconsciousness.

He woke alone again. He was curled on his side in a blanket, a thin carpet under his body and a dull ache in his right buttock competing with his other pains. He felt the new ache experimentally with his fingers realising that the bruised and slightly raised skin indicated an injection of some kind.

His head felt clearer than it had for days and the pain in his balls was surprisingly numb. He realised that his master had obviously injected him with some form of medication and he sighed in gratitude for his Master's benevolence, before slipping back into a restless sleep.

~~~

Mulder woke on Sunday morning, to find a large brown paper sack on the floor next to him. Yet again, he hadn't heard Krycek arrive or leave, despite a fresh burning sensation in the middle of his left buttock evidencing another injection of anti-biotic.

He carefully drew back the blanket and regarded his groin. The swelling of his balls had finally receded and despite a red tenderness around the ball-ring, his actual ball sac had returned to almost normal proportions.

His cock was still tender, but most of the scabs had dried and fallen off. The 's' and the 't' were now clearly visible, with only the letters between them still smudged by loose scabbing. He felt his cheeks burn as he realised that by tonight there would be nothing left to hide the terrible word.

Somehow, the collar had never felt as tight around his neck as it did at that moment, the moment when he understood that the leather could be removed but the tattoo was permanent. Yet, it was strangely comforting too. Skinner had given him a removable sign of his slavery and had indeed removed it. Was it possible that Krycek's choice of a permanent mark was an indication that he was going to keep him?

Please god, he hoped so.

With sudden enthusiasm and hope, he delved into the paper sack. The items inside made him gasp. There was a thermos flask. He nearly dropped it in his enthusiasm. He unscrewed the cap and the aroma of hot soup assailed his nostrils. It was the promise of warmth more than food that made his whole body quiver. He dug for a cup and found only a dog bowl.

Like Skinner, Krycek had engraved the bowl. Not this time with "fox" but with the even more humiliating "slut". Tears prickled Mulder's eyes, yet he didn't even consider trying to drink from the flask. He poured the soup into the bowl, leant over and lapped it up as obediently as though Krycek were in the room. He had no intention of throwing his master's kindness back in his face in a show of pointless rebellion.

He savored the taste on his tongue, relishing the delicious heat as it trickled down his throat and into his achingly empty belly. For a heart-stopping moment, his long abandoned stomach revolted against the invasion and he gagged. It took all his will power to deny the urge to vomit. He felt the unpleasant burn of bile in the back of his throat but willed it back down, and then carefully continued to lap until the soup was gone. Then he licked every last trace from both the bowl and the rim of the flask.

He wiped his face with his fingers, and then sucked them hungrily until he had to finally admit that every last drop of the soup had been devoured. The warmth in his belly seemed to spread into his limbs and for the first time in days, he began to feel alive again.

Then he turned his attention back to the bag, finding to his intense disappointment that there was no more food. Investigating the contents, he retrieved a frighteningly large butt-plug. The bulb was at least 10 centimeters across its widest diameter and the plastic was rigid and unyielding. He felt his ass contract just at the thought of it breaching his rim.

He found a thick leather paddle and put it aside with a shudder of fear and then his balls crawled as he found a short, stiff riding crop. There was also an economy-sized tube of lubrication, an enema bulb, a cock-ring, a clear plastic cock-cage, two small weights, and a gag-harness.

He inspected the latter with as much interest as fear. It was made of soft, dark brown leather. A thick-snaffle bit made of nylon was connected to straps that fastened both behind and above the head. A wide band of soft leather connected both cheek pieces to form a blindfold that reached from mid-forehead to the tip of the wearer's nose. Mulder realised that the wearer would be able to see the floor, but nothing else. Two long reins dangled from either side of the bit.

It was a pony-harness, he realised, his mouth curving into a smile as he remembered playing this particular game with Skinner. His cock stirred at the implication that his Master intended to ride him tonight.

//But only if you get that fucking butt-plug in your ass before he gets here// he told himself firmly.

He dragged himself to his feet and walked to the bathroom, his legs bowed and bent at the knees like an old cowboy to keep his groin from contact with his inner thighs.

He was surprised to find shampoo, soap, toothpaste and brush, an electric razor and a tube of hair-removal cream on the shelf next to the sink. Since the razor would easily deal with his facial stubble, and his pubic hair had been ripped out by the root, he couldn't imagine what Krycek wanted him to do with the cream. He soaped and washed his groin, glad now of the waxing since it took less of the freezing water to clean himself. The last of the dried scabs detached under his scrubbing and he winced as the tattoo was revealed in its vicious glory.

It was only as he went to wash under his arms that he understood what hair Krycek wanted removed. He shuddered with relief that Krycek hadn't decided to wax him there too. He spread the cream into his pits and, after a moment's thought, he applied it to his sparse chest hair and thighs too.

He stepped back under the freezing water and watched with a detached amazement as his body hair dropped off and swirled down the plughole. He felt more naked than he had ever done before and yet strangely clean. He wondered absently why Skinner had never required him to shave.

In view of his three-day abstention from solid food, his self-enema didn't take long, though the spasming of his guts made his currently distended belly roil in protest.

Then he used his blanket to towel himself dry, replaced his collar and taking a handful of lube, began to prepare himself for the butt plug. It was difficult to stretch his hole. He was conscious of the need to keep his arm away from his sore ball-sac, so he raised his right leg onto the toilet seat and bent over slightly so that he could enter himself from behind.

After several minutes of stretching, he covered the butt plug in lube and tried to insert it but his ass continually refused to open wide enough and right leg was beginning to cramp from his unnatural position. He tried again in a squatting position, straining against the plug, imitating a bowel movement to make his sphincter open.

His relief was so great when the plug finally forced itself into his passage, that the momentary pain was forgotten. He slowly stood up, feeling the plug stretching and filling him, its end just touching his prostate and giving him a delicious stroke each time he moved. His cock lengthened and reared to arousal in response to the stimulation.

He had to concentrate to make it soften enough for him to fasten the cock ring in place and the pressure of the leather made him harder than before. It took longer to fasten the cock cage over his sore penis. He soon understood why Krycek had chosen the clear plastic. The tattoo was clearly visible beneath the restraint.

He had a moment of panic as he tried to attach the last part. He had worn a cock-cage before, of course, but it had been open at the end to allow urination. This was different. The fixture for the cock-head was solid, with a thin two inch spike protruding from its inside. Mulder went dizzy as he realised that the spike was designed to penetrate his slit and form a bung to prevent him either pissing or ejaculating.

He returned to the toilet bowl and spent half an hour ensuing that his bladder was as empty as physically possible before covering the blunt plastic spike with lube and then easing it into the end of his cock. His eyes watered as the invader pushed into the only part of his body that had remained virgin until this moment.

He clipped the rings of the cage together and gasped at the resultant pressure. He took a tentative step, the plug rubbed his prostate, his cock jerked in reaction and then flinched back from the resultant knifing pain in his slit. He had to resist the urge to rip the torturous implement off his groin. He realised that it was designed to make sure that a sharp pain in his own cock would counter any pleasure he felt from being entered.

Skinner's words came back to him, "I fuck you for my pleasure, not yours. Any pleasure you feel is a bonus, not a right."

With a sickening feeling, Mulder understood that his new master had a clearer grasp of that concept than his former master did. Just as he had been forced to earn the blanket, so he would have to earn any kindness or pleasure. He was a slave. His body was Krycek's. Yet, his disappointment and fear was balanced by a strange sense of happiness too.

He had been a bad slave, not understanding the rules, continually disappointing his master until he had been finally abandoned as unworthy. His new master wasn't going to let him make the same mistakes. Krycek was going to force him to obey and thereby would protect him from himself.

Suddenly Mulder felt safe. Krycek was determined to keep him, he decided. That was why he was being so harsh. This wasn't cruelty; it was his way of protecting Mulder from himself. He cried again then, this time from relief rather than pain.

Eventually he made his slow, careful way back to the living room. He eased himself down onto the tattered piece of carpet and adopted position, relieved to find that as long as he opened his knees wide enough there was no pressure on his ball-sac.

He took one of the weights and, after deliberation, attached it to his left nipple-ring. What had seemed an almost insignificant weight in his hand dragged his sensitive nipple down and pain knifed through his chest. He yelped in surprise, his eyes watering and his breath expelling in shock. He had to wait until the sensation numbed to an almost exquisite pain, before repeating the process with the other nipple.

He wasn't sure whether he was grateful to Krycek for letting him prepare himself or not. This way he could at least take the time to ease his body into accepting each new experience. However, there was also something horribly demeaning about voluntarily doing this to himself. Skinner had often inflicted worse pain on him, but he had never made him inflict it on himself.

Mulder couldn't even pretend to be an unwilling accomplice if he continued to prepare himself for his master's arrival, and enough of his mind remained for him to understand that Krycek was deliberately making him participate in this enslavement. Yet, his understanding wasn't resentful. Krycek was teaching him, he realised, and he again wondered why Skinner had never cared about him enough to teach him properly. It never occurred to him that Skinner had had no more experience of being a master, than Mulder had of being a slave.

Finally, Mulder donned the harness. He struggled with its unfamiliar straps. It hadn't been designed for self-application, and as fast as he buckled one side, the other dropped. Finally, he detached the bit, connected the other straps and slid it into place. Then he put the bit in his mouth and fastened it into place. It was difficult, because of the blindfold, but his questing fingers finally connected with the last strap and he found himself harnessed, his mouth chewing absently at the soft nylon like a teething child.

As the next hour or so passed, he found himself placidly chomping on the bit, using it to distract himself from his cramping legs and Krycek's failure to arrive. From the tiny gap between the blindfold and his cheeks, he could see the light fading in the room. His stomach was growling its new emptiness and the room was becoming chilly against his naked skin.

He nearly sobbed with relief as he heard a key turn in the door and the graceful, cat-like walk of Krycek over the bare floorboards.

Even in the dim light, Krycek drank in the vision of Mulder. He had never seen anything as beautiful as Mulder kneeling quietly in position, having completely and voluntarily prepared himself for his master. It had been the fact that Mulder had been wearing the butt plug, in the hopes that Skinner would turn up, that had given him the idea. He would, of course, have been happy to beat Mulder for his disobedience and prepare him himself for their outing, but the fact that Mulder had acted on his own initiative to please him, made his victory so much sweeter.

"Stand up, slut," he ordered. He regretted that the blindfold concealed most of Mulder's flush at his words, but Spender had chosen the harness himself, so Krycek had to satisfy himself with simply knowing that Mulder was burning with humiliation.

Mulder's rise was still too pained to be graceful, but he did as he was told and then stood trembling like a racehorse, as Krycek prowled around him in inspection.

Krycek paused to push the butt plug further into Mulder's cheeks. It had eased itself out a little as the afternoon had gone on. Mulder took a deep gasp of breath and then stilled again.

Krycek was surprised that Mulder had managed to get the thing inside himself. It was as big as a fist. Again, it had been Spender's choice, so that tonight wouldn't damage Mulder too much. After the hours of being stretched by the gross object, Mulder would hopefully survive Spender's plans for this evening. Mulder was due back at work tomorrow; he would hardly make it with his guts hanging out of his ass.

Krycek sighed. He had such wonderful plans for his new toy. He could only hope that the consortium wouldn't do too much damage.

He disconnected the weights from Mulder's nipples, unable to resist giving each one a vicious squeeze and twist in the process. He saw Mulder's cock leap each time and then visibly shrivel again as the spiked cock-cage punished his arousal.

Taking a length of chain from his pocket, Krycek clipped its end to Mulder's ball-ring with an s-clip. Then with a careful tug, mindful of Slade's warning, he began to tow the naked man to the door.

Mulder began to tremble and struggle as he realised that he was being led out of his apartment naked, but a sharp tug on his balls brought him to instant whimpering submission. Krycek pulled him into the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby.

Halfway down, the lift stopped, its door opening to reveal a middle-aged couple, who both gaped in bewildered horror at Mulder's trembling nakedness.

Krycek saw the woman's eyes grow huge as she saw Mulder's erect cock and the word tattooed down its length. The bullring through his ball-sac seemed to equally fascinate her and Krycek gave a blazing smile. "Going down?" he asked casually.

The man grabbed his wife's arm and pulled her away from the door, too shocked to do anything but shake his head desperately.

The door closed and Krycek laughed uproariously at Mulder's quivering embarrassment, ignoring the muffled mewls of teary complaint from behind the gag. Since Mulder's blindfold concealed his identity, and he intended to take him home with him later anyway, Krycek was completely unconcerned about dragging Mulder through the building naked.

He doubted anyone would have the nerve to approach him, and by the time anyone had convinced the cops that they were sane and sober, any report of a naked man being dragged by a ball-chain would be too late.

Therefore, he deliberately got out in the lobby, rather than the basement, and dragged Mulder past a pair of tittering women and an abusive drunk on the way to the car. Mulder was so traumatised that as soon as he heard the trunk open, rather than fighting, he actually dove in and curled up in a weeping ball.

Krycek rolled the car out onto the busy street and began to whistle. He hadn't had so much fun in years, and by the end of the evening, Mulder would remember his elevator ride as being one of the best parts of the evening.

He chuckled happily and then sobered again. He really hoped they wouldn't go too far. It would be a real shame if they scarred Mulder too badly, he decided. When he finally put the bullet through him, he didn't want there to be any doubt about the identity of his corpse.

~~~

Part Twelve

Mulder lay on his side and tried to brace himself as Krycek rolled the car around corners with no consideration for his passenger. Between the butt plug and his sore balls, Mulder's only chance for relative comfort was to remain curled in a fetal position, but the swaying motion of the car made it almost impossible, and when, about an hour later, they reached a rutted, country lane, the bucking of the metal under his underweight hips was agonising.

He could actually feel the bruises as they spread across his left hipbone. When Krycek suddenly bit the brake, tossing him headfirst into the back of the compartment, he was almost relieved by the distraction of the new pain in his temple.

He heard Krycek's feet crunching in the unpaved road and then the trunk opened.

"Get out," Krycek ordered.

Mulder turned and looked in the direction of his voice and blindly began to scramble out of the trunk. He stumbled as his bare feet hit the sharp stones scattered on the dirt track. Through the crack in his blindfold, he tried to find a bare section of road to stand on.

"Whe-where are we, Master?" he whimpered, afraid of his blindness, but too terrified to attempt to release the harness.

Krycek only heard a muffled whimpering from behind the gag, but was pretty sure he could guess Mulder's state of mind.

"We are on our way to meet some mutual acquaintances," he told Mulder, smirking at the way his slave paled and stiffened at his words.

"They have certain *needs* that you will be expected to fulfill. If you please them, you will please me and I will take you home."

Mulder paled still further. Krycek frowned. Spender had told him about Mulder's voluntary visits to "Bizarre", so he hadn't expected Mulder to react too badly. Then realisation struck him and he understood Mulder's trepidation.

"I mean your new home, of course, with me," and he saw Mulder's shoulders relax. It interested him that Mulder was more concerned about his final destination than his immediate one.

"Our mutual friends are aware that you aren't fully tamed, and are prepared to allow for a certain amount of clumsiness on your part. I, however, will *not* be so forgiving. Each and every act of defiance and rebellion tonight will be noted and paid for later."

He saw Mulder shiver and flinch as the cock-cage punished him for reacting to Krycek's words with evident enthusiasm. Angered by Mulder's arousal, Krycek made a decision.

"However, I am not unreasonable. I am going to ensure that you have too little energy to even consider fighting."

Krycek picked up the loop of chain that hung from Mulder's ball ring and then fastened the other end to the car's tow hoop.

"We are on a private road. The lodge house is a little less than three kilometers ahead. You will run the rest of the way. I have chained you to the car. I suggest that you keep up, otherwise you will spend the rest of your life singing soprano."

Mulder just shook in confusion, his naked body trembling with cold and terror in the chilly night air. It wasn't until he heard Krycek walk back to the car, close his door with a clunk and start the engine that the significance of his Master's words fully struck him.

He barely had time to start moving before the car rolled forward, pulling the chain taut with a resultant sharp jerk of his balls. He had no choice but to move forward, trotting in blind terror as the car slowly increased speed.

The stones and pine needles were sharp under his bare soles as he jogged after the car, his hands desperately clutching the chain to ease the pull on his groin.

Krycek gently depressed the accelerator until the car was rolling along at a steady 10kmph and he kept a careful eye on the rear mirror, watching Mulder's frantic effort to keep up with him, with a satisfied grin.

Sweat was pouting down Mulder's back and sides, his lungs burning as he gasped for breath. His days of incarceration had softened his muscles and the burn in his calves and chest was breathtaking, but most agonizingly of all, his tender ball-sac and cock was slapping against his thighs as he ran, making him whimper in agony. He stumbled and staggered along the rough surface of the unpaved road.

Just when he couldn't run any further, when his muscles were screaming in defiance, Krycek cut the engine and rolled to a halt. Mulder ran into the rear end of the car before his brain registered that it had halted. He bounced off the bumper and fell backwards onto his butt, causing the butt-plug to punch his insides.

His resultant howl was so loud and agonised that it escaped the gag and pierced the night air. He nearly passed out from the pain, only to be startled back to reality by the sound of loud, slow clapping.

"Well, that was a spectacular entrance, Alex," growled a husky, sarcastic voice and Mulder shivered with terror, as he identified the speaker.

Krycek grinned at Spender and gave a sardonic bow as he unfastened Mulder from the car.

Spender wrinkled his nose with distaste at Mulder's dusty, sweat-streaked body.

"Hose him down before you bring him in," he snapped, but he couldn't prevent a low reluctant chuckle of amusement at the way the red road dust had turned Mulder the colour of his namesake.

Mulder scrambled to his feet, to relieve the torment of his ass, only to be almost knocked back down as Krycek hit him with the spray of a garden hose. The freezing water quickly dispelled the heat of his run and soon Mulder was blue with cold in the frigid night air. Only the hardening of his recent experiences, with his own frigid shower, preventing his body from collapsing in shock.

A sudden tug on his traumatised balls warned him to move again and he trotted after Krycek like an obedient hound, glad of the chink in his blindfold that allowed him to mount the stone steps of the house without stumbling and falling.

Once they were in the lobby of the mansion, Krycek turned and unclipped the s-link that connected the chain to Mulder's balls.

"Don't even *think* of trying to run. I have only removed this because the way they play, they are likely to castrate you if I leave them the temptation. Do you understand?"

Mulder nodded desperately beneath the blindfold. He felt Krycek take hold of the reins connected to his gag and pull him along a corridor and then into a room filed with chattering voices.

He burned with humiliation. He couldn't see, but from the volume, he guessed that at least a dozen men were present. His entrance paused the various conversations; he heard voices petering out in shock until the room was silent.

A strange, surprisingly cultured voice finally spoke.

"The poor boy is dripping, Alex. Take him to the fire."

Krycek grinned and obeyed, dragging Mulder until he was in front of the blazing fireplace and then taking his wrists and locking them into the padded cuffs that were attached to the mantelpiece. He saw Mulder shivering with relief as the heat began to make the water steam off his body and he grinned, knowing that the currently welcome warmth would quickly become a torturous oppressing heat. Sure enough, a servant approached with a pile of wood and began to stack the fire higher.

At a signal from Spender, Krycek removed the butt plug from Mulder and discarded it into the fire. It was unlikely that Mulder's ass would be tight enough to hold it on the journey home.

Mulder gasped with relief and sagged in the restraints. The fire was becoming uncomfortably hot on his front now, but his back still shivered with cold, making his buttocks tremble.

"His poor bottom is still cold," the cultured voice purred, "warm it up for him, Alex."

Mulder wasn't sure why the seemingly innocuous words sounded so coldly threatening until he felt a sharp slice across his butt cheeks. The gag muffled his howl of pained surprise and before he could catch breath, Krycek brought the crop down in another vicious arc.

Krycek laid a series of diagonal strokes from Mulder's shoulder blades down his calves. He noted with interest that the backs of his Mulder's knees seemed to be his most sensitive spot, so he concentrated on them as much as Mulder's ass cheeks, drawing blood in both places.

Then he took the bottle of cheap cooking brandy that one of the servants proffered and poured it down Mulder's welts. Mulder jerked like a crazed marionette and then collapsed in his restraints.

"He's out," Krycek told his enraptured audience dispassionately.

They slowly lost interest then, one by one returning to their papers, card games or discussions. Krycek looked with regret at Mulder's back. He really hated marking Mulder's skin like this. He could have achieved as much pain with the paddle and left Fox's pretty skin unscarred, but they had wanted blood, so he had had to comply.

Fox had pissed too many of them off for them to be satisfied with bruises. Besides, the night was still young; they had barely begun their fun and games. There was still the chance that his slave would leave here in a body bag.

With that thought in mind, Krycek took advantage of Mulder's unconsciousness to spread more lube into his ass and used his hand to stretch at his hole. He could easily get four fingers and his thumb into the entrance now, only his knuckles catching on the other man's ass.

He was concentrating too much on his task to realise that Mulder had woken up, until a low groan alerted him.

He stepped back, stripping the latex off his hand and turning casually to the room and announcing softly, "He's back with us again."

There was no reaction to his quiet words, but Spender caught his eye and motioned him to go sit down, so he went to the bar, poured himself a large vodka and sat down to watch the evening unfold.

He was a third of the way through his drink when the first consortium member casually put down his paper, rose and strolled casually to the fireplace. Only Krycek watched as he unzipped his fly and rammed his dick into Mulder's ass. Krycek's hand trembled a little around his glass as the man thrust viciously into Mulder, pulling on the reins to force Mulder's head back as he burrowed inside. He could see Mulder's elegant throat contorted backwards as he warbled in agony against the double pressure.

"You're staring, Alex," Spender's voice rumbled quietly and he flushed as his boss's eyes raked his own.

"Sorry, Sir," he muttered, taking a deep draught of his vodka.

"Remember, he isn't *your* toy, he's mine," Spender warned and Krycek nodded in defeat.

"Are you going to kill him?" Krycek asked, with an attempt at nonchalance, as he saw the second consortium member take his place at Mulder's ass.

"He's too potentially useful to kill, though I admit that there is a chance that tonight will get out of hand," Spender finally said, thoughtfully taking a drag on his cigarette and expelling a perfect smoke ring.

Krycek considered this. He had no doubt that all of the room's members intended to take their turns raping Mulder, but he doubted it would kill the agent. His ass was too well used to being abused. Then again, Spender knew that too.

"What are they planning?" he asked, unable to keep the fascinated worry from his voice.

"Mulder has pissed too many people off, he's fucked with all of us with his damned interference. Once he has been suitable 'chastised', he will then be expected to service each of the offended parties voluntarily to show his new state of compliance, and then they have a little 'wager' in mind."

Krycek swallowed heavily.

"What kind of wager," he asked, his hand trembling again as he held his glass.

"Collins told Palmer that he was going to fist Mulder. Not to be outdone, Palmer said he was going to bury his arm to the elbow. Conner says it isn't possible without killing him. So Palmer is going to prove his point and then I would imagine there will be a whole group of eager volunteers to try the sensation themselves."

Krycek looked at Spender in horror. He couldn't believe that he was going to allow it.

"Does Palmer know what he's doing?" he asked.

Spender chuckled. "Palmer is a doctor, he's also a dedicated bum-bandit. He believes fist fucking is an art form and according to my intelligence reports he partakes of it often. Always as a top, of course. My sources also suggest that it was one of Skinner's favourite pastimes too. I doubt that either Palmer or Skinner have ever gone so far, but still, after a day wearing that huge plug and twelve cocks up his ass, I tend to believe that Mulder could have a baseball bat up his ass and survive."

Krycek relaxed a little. If Mulder understood what was happening and relaxed, it was far more likely that the experience would be survivable. He felt his cock twitch at the thought. He imagined his own fist in Mulder, maybe his whole arm and he imagined Mulder begging for more.

"Feeling inspired, Alex?" Spender smirked as he saw Krycek's eyes glaze.

Krycek licked his suddenly dry lips.

"I can't imagine Skinner doing it," he told Spender suddenly. "Fist-fucking, I mean. Come to think of it, none of his relationship with Mulder made sense. He was a damned amateur; he's completely screwed Mulder's head up. There's more crap from me to undo than basics to build on," he griped.

"I don't know, he seems rather tamed to me," Spender replied, watching the floorshow with more interest. Parker-Thompson had unfastened Mulder from his restraints and was riding him doggy fashion on the floor. He had the reins in one hand and the crop in the other as he spurred Mulder on with a wild thrashing of the crop from the outside of one thigh to the other, like a demented jockey.

Only when Parker-Thompson accidentally hit his own thigh in his enthusiasm, did the situation suddenly spiral out of control. Somehow blaming Mulder for his own mistake, he began to lay the whip heavily across Mulder's head and shoulders. Spender surged to his feet and snatched the crop out of the other man's hands.

"Don't mark him *visibly* you idiot," he hissed, visions of Mulder's cheeks being sliced to pieces by the flying crop making him flare with anger.

Parker-Thompson just glared, grunted and released his load into Mulder's ass.

"You next?" he asked Spender, slyly.

"That's right," Spender replied, his eyes cold as a lizard's.

Parker-Thompson smirked and released his bladder into Mulder's ass with a satisfied groan. Mulder twitched and spasmed as the hot, acidic liquid bit into his abraded passage. Parker-Thompson withdrew his cock and semen, blood and piss trickled back out of Mulder's torn buttocks.

Spender ignored Parker-Thompson's smirk and gestured to Krycek.

"Take the slut and give him a douche," he instructed, letting his eyes rest on Krycek's green gaze long enough to make sure that the younger man would take the opportunity to prepare Mulder for the ordeal ahead.

~~~

Krycek locked the bathroom door behind them and began to strip the harness off Mulder's head. The blank look in Mulder's eyes worried him for a moment, then he decided that Mulder had simply drifted off into sub-space.

His slave's mouth was ripped at the edges where the pressure of the gag had broken the skin, causing dark bruises to form. Mulder looked ridiculously like The Joker. There was no way he could be seen in public like this. Krycek was going to have to come up with an excuse to keep Mulder off work for a few more days. If he survived Palmer's experiment, that is.

He detached the cock-ring and the brutal cage, then rubbed Mulder's erect shaft just twice. Mulder screamed and shot his load all over the bathroom tiles. Then Krycek told him to take a piss.

Mulder continued to look at him blankly for a second, his eyes so huge and unseeing that Krycek began to wonder whether there was a brain left behind them, but then Mulder staggered over to the toilet and released a stream of hot urine.

Krycek turned on the shower, checked that the water was pleasantly warm, and pushed Mulder under its spray, handing him a bar of soap and telling him gruffly to clean himself inside and out.

His seemingly caring actions were motivated, in truth, by two things. Firstly, he knew that if Mulder had a full bladder it would more likely to get punctured by Palmer's arm. Secondly, should Mulder survive, he wanted his slave to remember his kindness tonight and cling onto the memory; that in the midst of such pain, his Master had looked after him. It would be far easier to control Mulder if he saw his Master as a source of comfort as well as pain.

He knew that despite Skinner's amateur blundering, the older man had somehow inspired love and devotion in Mulder. Krycek was determined to steal those affections for himself. Not because he wanted Mulder to love him, but because of the power that those feelings would give him over his slave.

It was all very well ruling by terror alone, but he didn't want to have to look constantly over his shoulder for fear that Mulder might bolt or rebel. When he finally took Mulder's life, he wanted those hazel eyes to be gazing at him with the adoration of a puppy dog as he snuffed their light out.

So he helped Mulder out of the shower, wrapped his trembling body in a large, soft towel and patted him dry. Mulder began to sob against him, clinging to him like a lifeline.

"Please, Master," he begged. "No more, please. I hurt so bad. "

He sounded like a broken child, lost and confused.

"Shush," Krycek soothed, running his hands comfortingly over Mulder's back, mindful of the welts that made his slave flinch even under his gentle touch.

"You're a good boy, Fox," he whispered and felt Mulder quivering with relief.

"Just two more things and I will take you home," he promised.

Mulder's pain-glazed eyes stared at him trustingly, hope dancing golden in their depths.

"Firstly, I am going to take you back in the room and you will crawl up to each man on your hands and knees. You will apologise for your former defiance and offer to pleasure them with your mouth or your ass in an act of recompense," he ordered.

He saw Mulder flush, weigh up the humiliation against the relative painlessness of the task and give a shudder of compliance.

"Yes, Master," he whispered.

"Then, a final thing, a difficult painful thing," Krycek whispered back, still soothing as Mulder began to whimper in his arms.

"One or more of them are going to fist you," he told Mulder and felt the other man flinch in his arms.

"Please, Master. No more, no more," Mulder sobbed brokenly. His ass was on fire, the skin of his passage abraded and ripped. The idea of having to offer his mouth or ass to all of the men was terrifying enough, but at least he had the hope that many of them would accept his throat.

The thought of his already agonised ass being breached by a fist was more than he could cope with. He began to hyperventilate, his breath coming in short painful gasps.

Krycek watched Mulder panic and reveled in it. Mulder was so far gone that he would have literally wet himself if Krycek hadn't already made him urinate. He slapped Mulder sharply across the face and the sudden pain forced Mulder's eyes to focus on his once more.

"You are a slave, Fox. Your body is mine to do with as I wish, isn't it?" he demanded fiercly.

"Yes, Master," Mulder sobbed.

"I know Skinner taught you to submit to the fist," Krycek told Mulder coldly and was surprised by the dreamy expression that crept over Mulder's face at the memory.

Spender was right, Krycek realised bitterly. Somehow Skinner had tapped something in Mulder that craved pain and humiliation. Yet still Mulder resisted his own control.

"How dare you try to deny your new Master something that you freely gave your last?" Krycek yelled, smashing his open palm across Mulder's cheekbone with bruising force.

Mulder staggered under the blow, his eyes darting in panic.

"Only him," Mulder gasped, then panicked as Krycek's green eyes blazed in fury. He tried desperately to explain, "Only YOU," he choked.

Krycek's eyes narrowed in thought, as his slave's words finally made sense to him. Mulder wasn't suggesting that his Master shouldn't fist him, only that the consortium members shouldn't. The realisation calmed him. He understood Mulder's terror. For his own reasons, he shared it.

"Turn around and bend over," he told Mulder gently. "Brace your hands on the toilet seat and spread your legs."

For a moment Mulder hesitated, his hazel eyes desperately searching Krycek's face. Krycek resisted the urge to strike him for his failure to respond. This was an important moment, a precious moment. Not only would he hopefully ensure Mulder's survival with his next act, he also believed that it would finally remove Mulder's lingering desire for Skinner.

He almost laughed at the idea of having to prove to his slave that he could satisfy him as well as his previous Master, just so that he could force Mulder into accepting a situation that no sane person would accept.

It was the humor of that thought that allowed him to run a gentle hand over Mulder's bruised cheek and he bent and kissed Mulder's trembling lips.

For an almost imperceptible moment, Mulder's mouth resisted his questing tongue, and then, like a dam breaking, Mulder's tongue met his and their mouths danced together in hot passion. Krycek sucked the air from Mulder's lungs, leaving the other man swaying uncertainly, his lips swollen and his eyes glazed with a different confusion.

His eyes widened a little as Krycek withdrew a fresh latex glove from his jacket pocket and slipped it onto his hand.

"Give me what is mine, Fox," Krycek purred seductively as he reached for a tube of lubrication conveniently placed on the shelf (presumably by Spender).

Something flickered in the depths of Mulder's eyes and then was chased away as his gaze fixed on Krycek's gloved fingers. He expelled a sigh that was both defeat and relaxation and turned to assume the position his Master had ordered.

As Krycek covered his hand with the gel, then inserted the still ¾ full tube into Mulder's asshole and squeezed the entire contents inside, he considered that sigh and realised he could do this. Not only would he be ensuring that Mulder's ass was loose enough for Palmer, but he could also leave Mulder in a frame of mind that would ensure his co-operation with the consortium.

Mulder was a born-sub, a natural bottom, he realised. Skinner hadn't made him that way, he had just untapped a potential that had always been there. Shit, he wished he had been Mulder's first. What a beautiful moment it must have been when Mulder had first been forced to face the betrayal of his own body, Krycek mused.

No wonder Mulder was so fucked up in his head. Skinner hadn't had the experience to help Mulder reconcile his subservient sexuality with his otherwise strong personality. Instead of using Mulder's slavery to help Mulder to control himself, Skinner had ripped away all control and left Mulder floundering in confusion.

He could have created a loving symbiotic relationship with his agent. Instead he had broken him into pieces and then, terrified of the damage he had wrought, had thrown him away as soon as Spender had cornered him.

Still, Krycek had to admit that he liked this broken Mulder. Yes, it would have been more fun to have taken Mulder virgin, and broken him subtly. But, you worked with what you had, and Mulder was already so far down the path of madness that Krycek had decided to just nudge him further along instead of hauling him back from the brink.

Mulder was little more than an animal now, a slave to his own body's needs. Spender wanted him to save Mulder, bring him back from the edge, centre him, give him his self-respect back while keeping him under the consortium's control. And Krycek would have done it, would have followed orders, except what was the point?

Having had a taste of Mulder's ass tonight, there was no way the consortium would leave it alone. They would want to play regularly with their new toy, until they broke him past repair. Spender might think that Mulder could function in the real world at the same time as he whored himself to the consortium members, but that was only because Spender didn't know the real Mulder well enough.

The truth was that Mulder was on borrowed time. Any attempt to repair Skinner's damage would only cause Mulder to rebel against his enslavement, and the only way he would survive his enslavement would be to become a mindless sex-toy, and consequently useless to the consortium. That being said, as long as Mulder retained some novelty value as a sex-toy, the consortium would presumably keep him alive.

So Krycek was determined to make Mulder the best little whore in DC. For the weeks or possibly even months that Mulder would be allowed to stay alive, Krycek was going to get full value out of his ass. There was even the chance that if Mulder entertained them enough, Spender would let Krycek keep Mulder as a personal pet afterwards. For some reason Spender seemed determined to ensure Mulder's survival.

Sure, he would tire of the slut himself, eventually, but there was so much fun to be had in the meantime.

By this thought, he had four fingers in Mulder's ass and was beginning to push his thumb in to join. Again his large knuckles caught on Mulder's rim, but this time, instead of resisting, he felt Mulder strain back against his hand and unbelievably, Mulder's sphincter opened wider and he felt his well greased hand actually beginning to slide inside.

Krycek held his breath in disbelief. He had once punched someone up the ass and had delighted in the feeling of ripping intestines as he had ruptured the bastard's insides. It had been one of the most satisfying assassinations he had ever done. It had given a new meaning to the phrase, up close and personal.

Yet the feeling had been nothing compared to the knowledge that the man he hated most in the world was voluntarily letting him slide his hand inside his ass.

As soon as his hand breached Mulder's passage, the sphincter snapped shut like a vice on his far narrower wrist and he almost panicked at the sensation, feeling an almost uncontrollable urge to yank his hand back out.

He could feel his spine crawling as he imagined Mulder's ass snapping his wrist, ripping off his hand. The tension made his trapped hand curl into a fist and Mulder groaned in reaction.

"Is that good, slut?" Krycek purred nastily.

"Oh god, yeah," Mulder gasped.

Krycek slowly swiveled his hand, feeling his wrist sliding easily in the slick opening. Mulder grunted and moaned at the sensation, panting heavily as the pleasure/pain overwhelmed him.

Krycek opened his fingers and slowly withdrew his hand, interested by Mulder's whimper of abandonment. Again he breached the hole, finding only momentary resistance this time and then pushing a little deeper until his fingers found Mulder's prostate. He squeezed and Mulder leapt in the air in reaction, his bucking forcing Krycek back out.

Krycek repeated the exercise a dozen times until Mulder's ass was so huge that he couldn't imagine the sphincter ever managing to close again. Each brutal squeeze of his prostate had made Mulder buck and climax. The toilet seat was covered in pearly streams of cum and Mulder's heart was racing so fast that its beat was audible in the tiny room.

Krycek had a last foray into Mulder's insides, this time seeking and finding his bladder. More carefully this time he squeezed and watched in fascination as a tiny stream of piss dribbled out of Mulder's cock.

He felt a mile high. The power of his control over the most basic functions of the other man's body was the headiest drug he had ever tasted. He couldn't ever give this up, he decided. Forget killing Mulder, he was going to keep him forever. Maybe he would leave the cock-cage on permanently, and only allow Mulder to piss by this method.

The thought of Mulder having to beg to be fisted, just to relieve his bladder, made his cock jump. He considered a quick fuck before returning Mulder to the room and then realised that fucking would have to take place before fisting. Mulder's ass was currently looser than a broken $10 whore's.

He started to strip the latex from his hand, pleased to see no fresh blood on the white glove. Despite the earlier damage to Mulder's ass from the multiple rapes, the fisting seemed, if anything, to have eased Mulder's pain.

"Suck me, Slut," he ordered, and Mulder scrambled around to a kneeling position and reached for his zip.

"Just your mouth," Krycek hissed.

Mulder didn't even flinch, his eyes were completely glazed, his face dreamy, as he replied, "Yes, Sir," and used his teeth to draw back the zipper. He nuzzled into the gap and used his lips to retrieve Krycek's cock and then one by one he sucked his balls out to join it.

Even as Mulder's soft mouth sucked and caressed his groin, Krycek could feel the blood raging through his veins at Mulder's words.

"Yes, Sir," he had said, not "yes, Master," and Krycek knew, beyond doubt, that Mulder wasn't even in the bathroom with him. He had escaped into a fantasy where the fist in his ass, and the cock in his mouth, were that bastard Skinner's.

But he controlled his fury. It was something to address at another time, in another place. At the moment, it was probably Mulder's only chance to survive the night. If pretending that Krycek was Skinner would allow him to get through the next few hours, then Krycek would live with it, for now.

Once he got Mulder home though, he would teach the slut to associate the thought of Skinner with the worst beating of his sorry life.

~~~

Part Thirteen

Mulder had barely finished licking Krycek clean, when there was an insistent knock on the bathroom door.

Sighing with irritation, Krycek fastened his trousers and unlocked the door. One of the lodge servants stood there, a faint blush on his face, as he handed Krycek a carrier bag.

"Mr. Spender has requested that you bring his guest back to the drawing room now," the servant muttered. "He has provided appropriate attire for him."

Krycek took the bag, frowning with curiosity.

"Tell him that we will be there in five minutes," he replied and shut the door. He turned to gaze at Mulder who was still kneeling submissively on the floor.

"Let's see what 'appropriate attire' is," he said.

As he opened the bag and looked inside, his eyes widened incredulously and he began to laugh.

"Oh, Jesus, you poor little bastard," he sniggered, as he began to withdraw the items and lay them out on the side of the washbasin.

"Get up and sit on the toilet," he ordered.

Mulder rose stiffly to his feet and carefully seated himself on the pine toilet seat. He was unable to prevent a moan escaping, as his savagely whipped butt cheeks made contact with the hard wood surface.

Put these on," Krycek ordered, dangling a pair of black stockings in front of Mulder's face.

Rather than portraying the revulsion that Krycek expected, Mulder's eyes remained completely blank and uncomprehending.

Shit, Krycek muttered to himself. Mulder was so far out of it that he didn't even seem to understand what he was holding in his hands.

Krycek didn't have time to knock the sense back into him, so one by one, he rolled the black fish-net stockings up Mulder's legs, noting that Mulder hadn't exfoliated his lower legs and chalking up another punishment for later.

"Stand up," he snapped, when he was finished.

Mulder rose stiffly to his feet. He made no protest as Krycek fastened a red and black silk Basque around his midriff. Krycek realised that it must have been designed for a man's body, because it fitted perfectly around Mulder's thin but still muscular torso.

It was cut away at the top so that Mulder's pierced nipples were left on display. His gold weighted tits were too flat for the proper effect though, Krycek decided. He tightened the corset bindings cruelly, until the bones of the garment dug into Mulder's ribs, creating the illusion of a narrow 'waist'.

Forced upwards by the restrictive tightness of the Basque, Mulder's pecs bulged to form small breasts.

Krycek changed the small gold hoops for the heavier nipple rings that Spender had provided. The extra weight of the new rings dragged Mulder's tits out and downwards. Krycek then squeezed them viciously, until they were deep red and swollen.

Even Krycek's brutal pinching failed to break through Mulder's haze. It was only as Krycek started to attach the suspender straps to the tops of the stockings, that Mulder finally returned from whatever dream he had been lost in and immediately began to panic.

"No, no, please god, no," he whimpered.

"Shut the fuck up, Fox," Krycek growled irritably. "What are you?"

Mulder's face twisted with misery, then his eyes dipped in defeat.

"A worthless slut," he finally replied, tears of humiliation forming in his eyes and then rolling slowly down his cheeks.

"So now, you just look like the slut you are. Don't you?" Krycek snapped.

Mulder just continued to sob quietly.

Krycek looked at Mulder's outfit in distaste. Spender and his buddies were sick fucks, in his opinion. Mulder looked ludicrous as a transvestite, his cock and balls swinging incongruously between a Basque and stockings.

Krycek was relieved that the bag hadn't contained make-up. Krycek didn't think he could have coped with plastering lipstick on Mulder's trembling lips.

He knew the consortium were ruthless and completely merciless to those who crossed them. Even so, it seemed to be taking the joke too far. Mulder was a slut and a bottom, no doubt, but he wasn't in the least bit effeminate.

If anything, the bizarre outfit managed to hide Mulder's own attractiveness and made him look simply pathetic.

That's when Krycek understood.

This outfit wasn't designed to titillate the audience, but instead was just meant to completely humiliate the wearer. Judging by Mulder's reaction, the outfit was achieving the desired effect.

Still, on top of the whipping, the rapes and the planned fisting, it seemed like pointless over-kill to Krycek.

He also doubted that Mulder would be able to walk in the stilettos that Spender had provided. The six-inch heels tapered to a tip that was barely a centimeter in diameter. It surprised Krycek that they fitted Mulder's feet at all.

A slim collar and lead completed the outfit. The collar was studded with diamante, and the cheap sparkle of the paste stones just added to the overall look of a cheap, transvestite whore.

"Come on," he snapped.

Mulder closed his eyes and took a deep steadying breath. Then he straightened his shoulders and let Krycek lead him from the room.

As he led the stumbling man down the corridor and back into the crowded room, Krycek found himself oddly proud of the way Mulder tried not to flinch and cower with embarrassment. Mulder seemed resigned to his fate, although his scarlet cheeks and haunted eyes revealed the true depth of his distress.

It was only when their entrance was greeted by the flash of a camera bulb that Mulder began to fall apart. He tried to turn and run out of the room, his panic so sudden and unexpected, that the lead was almost snatched out of Krycek's hand.

Krycek yanked back so fiercly that he toppled Mulder to his knees. Mulder immediately stopped struggling, instead curling up in a ball, using his arms to try to hide himself from the whirring camera.

Krycek saw Spender's cold eyes glaring at him from across the room, and gave a short nod of acknowledgement. He snapped his fingers at one of the servants, who immediately rushed forwards to hand him his crop.

It only took two sharp cracks across Mulder's backside to make the cowering man straighten back into position, his knees spread wide enough to expose his tattooed cock between the suspender straps. He flinched as another flash bulb evidenced a permanent record of his humiliation.

"Priceless," Parker-Thompson chortled as he snapped the lens cap back on his camera. He removed the film and handed it to a servant. "Go down to the darkroom and process this. I want enlargements on Skinner's desk by 9 o'clock."

He turned to Krycek next.

"Take that pansy shit off him," he ordered.

Relieved by the order, Krycek complied, removing everything except the nipple rings and collar. Mulder didn't seem to appreciate the lesser humiliation of simple nudity, however. He continued to weep loudly.

"Remember what I told you to do," Krycek snapped, "and stop that fucking whining or you'll get another whipping first."

Krycek returned to Spender's table and gratefully accepted the large vodka that Spender handed him.

"Skinner's desk?" he queried, his interest piqued by Parker-Thompson's comment.

"He returned from his vacation early," Spender replied, with a shrug.

Krycek wasn't fooled by Spender's casual tone.

"You told him to go for a fortnight, didn't you?" he challenged.

Spender took a long drag of his cigarette before viciously grinding it into the ashtray, his face so twisted with annoyance that Krycek imagined that Spender was seeing A D Skinner's flesh under the hot tip.

"The situation has changed," he finally confirmed. "It seems that A D Kersh has filed a formal request that our 'friend,'" he gave a nod in Mulder's direction, "should attend a medical and psychiatric review tomorrow. Skinner's secretary contacted him in Hawaii and he immediately flew back."

Krycek went cold. Mulder had no more chance of passing an evaluation than of growing wings and flying.

"Can Skinner stop it?" he asked.

"We don't believe so," Spender replied. "Neither can any of our people. We should have intervened earlier. It's too late now."

"So Mulder is finished with the FBI?" Krycek asked.

"Obviously," Spender snapped.

"How long have you known?" Krycek asked, his mind racing furiously.

"Since before I assigned you to him," Spender confirmed.

"So you always knew that Mulder wasn't going to go back to work?" Krycek asked. "You lied to me?"

Spender merely shrugged. "That's the game, Alex. Mulder has unfortunately outlived his usefulness. This," and he gestured towards Mulder again, "is merely a present for the Consortium. A last goodbye, so to speak."

"So why the hell did you want me to 'prepare' him for the fisting?" Krycek demanded.

"Did you do it?" Spender asked quietly.

"Yeah," Krycek spat bitterly.

"And?"

"And the fucking slut creamed all over the bathroom. Satisfied? " Krycek replied.

Spender narrowed his eyes in thought, watching as Mulder finally hauled himself to his hands and knees and began to crawl to the nearest member.

"His ass looks like the Jersey Tunnel," Spender commented.

Krycek followed his gaze. Spender was right, even from across the room, Mulder's hole gaped like an ugly wound between his red, swollen butt-cheeks.

"You still hate him, don't you? You actually enjoy seeing him brought to this," Spender murmured.

"Don't you?" Krycek replied curiously.

"Honestly? No, I don't," Spender replied. "I'd rather have seen him dead than broken like this. I wanted him to join us voluntarily. I thought that he would eventually tire of his pointless crusade for justice. He was too intelligent to knock his head against a brick wall forever. One day he would have realised that you can only change things from within, and he would have joined us."

"So why this?" Krycek asked, surprised to see genuine regret on Spender's face.

"Because Skinner fucked him up and I waited too long before interfering. I thought that making Skinner let him go, would give Fox a chance to get his head together."

"So you decided to put me in Skinner's place," Krycek replied.

"Not YOU. I hardly took him off Skinner to give him to a sadistic little fuck like you. Since Mulder had acquired a 'taste' for the lifestyle, we intended to give him to Palmer. We knew that Mulder would fall so hard for him that he would be only too eager to do as he was told, at work, as well as in bed.

"Only our plans became pointless when Kersh filed his report. If Mulder is dismissed on the grounds of insanity, it will put the X-files under threat. We have no option now except to kill him *before* the evaluation." Spender told him sadly. "The consortium 'gave' him to you, simply to ensure that his last days on this Earth were as miserable as possible. They seem to have made a wise choice." Spender spat at Krycek, his disgust for the younger man palpable.

"If he is going to die, I still don't understand why the hell you asked me to 'prepare' him. Why not just let Palmer punch his guts out?" Krycek demanded.

"Because we don't want the inconvenience of having to dispose of his corpse tonight," Spender replied calmly, only his usually implacable eyes showing the slightest shade of regret.

"If Fox survives tonight, and thanks to you, he probably will, you will make arrangements for his fatal 'accident' tomorrow"

"You promised me I could keep him," Krycek growled.

"I said you could play with him and eventually kill him. You've already played, and eventually is now tomorrow," Spender replied.

"Why can't he just 'disappear'?"

"We want a clean end to this. A missing FBI agent will cause a furor. A dead one will soon be forgotten."

"So why the photo?" Krycek asked in confusion.

"Insurance," Spender replied. "After seeing it, Skinner won't grieve for his slut, he'll be glad to be rid of him. We don't want the accident investigated."

Krycek watched in horror as Mulder crawled from lap to lap, being forced to apologise and bring each man to climax with his lips.

"They all know that by this time tomorrow he'll be dead?"

"It makes the whole 'entertainment' sweeter for them," Spender replied.

"Let me have him," Krycek begged desperately. "I know you don't want this, you don't want to kill him. I promise no one will ever find out."

"What makes you think I would rather leave him in your hands?" Spender asked with an incredulous laugh. "You're a sad, sick fuck Alex Krycek. I wouldn't trust you with my dog, let alone my s-, Mulder. I'd rather see him dead. I can't stop what is happening tonight, but I am sure as hell not going to let it continue. It's over, Alex. You went too far and overplayed your hand."

"What do you mean?"

"If you have gone to his apartment and claimed him, made him feel wanted, loved, owned, made him want to be part of us, I could have perhaps persuaded our associates that he still had value. Instead, what do you do? You put a fucking bull-ring through his balls, tattoo his cock and leave him lying in his own shit for two days."

Krycek regarded Spender in dawning realisation.

"You did this. You set this evening up to fire their bloodlust didn't you? This whole sordid spectacle is just to stop the consortium from letting me keep him," he accused.

"Better a night of agony, than a lifetime, Alex. I really thought you'd take care of him. I thought your hatred stemmed from the fact that you wanted him and couldn't have him. I actually thought you would see him as a priceless gift. By the time I realised that you were just a sadistic little fuck, it was too late. The consortium wouldn't agree to another change of Master, so all I could do was get them to stick to the original plan and kill him."

"You know something, Spender?" Krycek smirked. "I think you have made *another* mistake. You think that they will be so satisfied by tonight that they will agree to Mulder's 'accident'. You're wrong. Now they've had a taste of his ass, they will be like dogs on heat, begging for more. I think they will be more than happy to let me keep him for their further entertainment."

"Don't fuck with me, Krycek," Spender growled. "You don't need me as an enemy. Cross me and I'll destroy you."

Krycek's hand shook noticeably as he raised his vodka glass and he dipped his eyes from Spender's glare in apparent capitulation, yet his mind was already racing with ways to avoid Mulder's 'accident'. He wasn't stupid enough to take on Spender alone, but Spender wasn't the only powerful man here tonight.

Krycek had waited too long for his vengeance, to let Mulder off the hook with a quick death.

~~~

It took over an hour for Mulder to make his torturous crawl around the room and finally arrive at Spender's chair. Head hanging, he crept between Spender's legs.

His throat was so raw and abraded that Spender could barely hear Mulder's croaked confession of his sins, his acknowledgement that he was nothing more than a worthless slut and his offer of his mouth or ass in recompense.

However, since he had written the lines himself, he had no problem identifying them, even as distorted as they had become since Mulder had received twelve vicious cocks into his throat.

He signaled a servant to bring a glass of water and then stopped Mulder's attempt to unzip him with his teeth.

"No," he said softly and pushed Mulder's mouth away from his crotch.

Mulder shivered in confusion and fear, wondering desperately what he had done wrong this time. Each of the consortium members had made a point of finding some fault with his apology. His ears were literally ringing from the number of blows he had received across his head in the last hour. He was dazed and exhausted. The pain in his head and throat now vying for ascendancy with the waves of torment from his whipped backside.

When a surprisingly gentle hand cupped his chin and raised his mouth to meet a chilled glass of water, all thought other than his raging thirst left his head. He gulped at the water, his body shuddering with relief as the cold fluid slid down his tortured throat.

Even his shudders were sensuous, Spender noticed with sorrow. Fox was like a cat, he decided, his body designed for caresses, his groin hot-wired to respond to the slightest touch. His years of confused celibacy must have created a volcanic pressure that Skinner had unwittingly brought to eruption.

Spender rubbed his hand caressingly through Mulder's sweat-drenched hair, and sighed as Mulder leant blissfully into his hand, whimpering in pleasure at the unexpectedly gentle touch.

What a waste, what a damned, fucking waste. Between Bill Mulder, Skinner and Krycek, Mulder had been destroyed.

"It's nearly over, little one," he whispered hoarsely with a gentleness that made Krycek nearly fall off his seat in amazement.

"Just a little more pain and then peace, I promise you, Fox. Soon there will be no more pain, only peace."

"Peace," Mulder croaked back longingly, tears spilling down his face from under his closed eyelids.

Spender allowed him a couple more minutes of respite and then his face snapped back to its usual mask of sardonic indifference.

He looked around the room, at the gathered vultures, and forced his voice to emerge strong and cruel.

"Isn't it about time to settle a wager, gentlemen?"

The room was filled with exclamations of eagerness. Collins cleared a wide table and dragged it to the centre of the room. One of the servants produced a large plastic tablecloth, a bucket of warm water, a selection of latex and rubber gloves, a tube of lubrication and a tub of Vaseline.

Krycek began to rise, to take Mulder to the table.

"Sit down, Alex. This is my show," Spender snapped.

Krycek seethed as Spender denied him his rights as Mulder's Master. It was he who should be taking Mulder to his fate, not this stranger wearing Spender's face, who was soothing Mulder, helping him to his feet, whispering in the Mulder's ear as though the slut was a nervous bride.

Spender could feel Krycek's green eyes piercing his back with hatred, but he shrugged. Krycek had done his part, now it would be he who saw Mulder through this. In his own sick way, he wanted to make up for everything Mulder had been put through because of his own mistakes, with one act of bizarre kindness.

To his surprise, Mulder hesitated when they reached the table, turning to look Palmer straight in the face.

"I don't know you," he croaked so quietly that the words were barely audible.

A look of pain and regret flashed over Palmer's features and he reached out his right hand to stroke Mulder's cheek.

"Don't be frightened, little one," he replied softly, thankful that his dark skin obscured his blush of shame.

He knew that Spender was right, that Collin's intention to fist Mulder would have ripped Mulder apart. He had never fisted an unwilling ass in his life, but was trusting that his experience and Mulder's sexual docility would enable him to do what he had boasted.

He couldn't save Mulder's life. Nevertheless, perhaps he could, at least, make the leaving of it less traumatic.

He helped Mulder up onto the low table and encouraged him down onto his hands and knees on the slick plastic. Collins had chosen the table well. In this position, Mulder's ass was just a little higher than Palmer's waist.

Palmer washed and soaped his arms with the panache of a T.V. vet. He played to his audience, making a dramatic show of donning a latex glove on his left hand and a rubber calving glove on his right arm that stretched up to the middle of his right bicep.

He used his left hand to smear Vaseline all over the calving glove until it shone almost silver in the electric light.

Then he squeezed the contents of the tube into and around Mulder's ass. As soon as the nozzle touched his pucker, Mulder's hole flared and opened from a rosebud to full bloom.

Palmer met Spender's eyes and winked. It was obvious that Mulder had been well prepared, but he had no intention of mentioning it aloud.

Spender was at Mulder's head, his hands caressing Mulder's face, as he whispered to the dazed man to relax, to submit, to enjoy, in a voice so soothing and gentle that Mulder tuned out the raucous chatter of the other consortium members and clung onto the voice like a lifeline.

He was alone, he told himself, and there was no pain, no humiliation, just that soft, loving voice shining like a beacon in the dark hopelessness of his life.

The first touch of Palmer's fingers in his ass-hole, threatened to break the spell. He flinched and started like a thoroughbred, but still the soothing hands and the gentle voice continued and he floated away from his body towards the unexpected kindness.

As soon as Mulder's mind shut down, his muscles went limp and Palmer's questing fingers slipped easily into Mulder's already stretched ass. There was a collective gasp of amazement as the audience saw Palmer's hand simply disappear inside.

Most of those present tended towards a vanilla sex-life, only occasionally spiced up by the odd rape and whipping at this club. Barely a handful had even considered fist fucking, let alone witnessed it. Several of them turned a little pale and clenched their own asses tightly in subconscious empathy.

Palmer waited patiently for Mulder's ass to adjust to his presence. He ignored the heckling that his motionless position created. Any idiot could punch his hand in, he knew, but it would kill Mulder, and although the premature death of the agent wouldn't really concern the spectators, it was a matter of pride with him that he would prove himself to be a craftsman in this rather than a blundering fool.

He felt Mulder's internal grip loosen as he adjusted to the invasion, and he began to spread and flex his fingers. Mulder's back arched and a low moan escaped his lips.

"He's enjoying it, he's fucking enjoying it," Johnson laughed incredulously, as Mulder's cock went stiff and began to weep.

Palmer felt his hand and wrist squeezed and massaged by a roll of muscular contractions. Palmer had been in enough butts to understand that Mulder was, indeed, a natural at this kind of play.

"Okay, my beauty," he whispered excitedly and began to slowly form a fist inside Mulder. He had mentally prepared himself to stay emotionally distant from his victim, knowing that if he let himself be stopped by Mulder's panic he would only be abandoning him to other less experienced fists. But when he found trust and arousal instead of terror, it nearly broke his heart to continue.

"I don't know you," Mulder had whispered. Obviously trying to protect him. Keeping faith with him despite the horror of what he knew Palmer was planning to do to him. And now, relaxing in his hands, trusting him and submitting to his fist.

What a fucking, shameful waste, he thought, as he gave the gentlest of punches into Mulder's prostate. Mulder howled and came immediately, his cum noisily splattering the plastic sheet.

Palmer ignored the wild applause of his audience. He had never topped anyone so sensuous and responsive before and the idea of killing him made his stomach revolt. He looked up and his eyes met Spender's, only to see the same grief reflected in the other man's eyes.

He took in the way that Spender was soothing Mulder, holding him in sub-space with his voice and touch, and understood the unbelievable fact that the ice-hearted Spender actually cared for Mulder. He was staggered, and shocked and angered. Why the hell had Spender allowed this?

He looked at the other man in bewilderment.

"Carry on," Spender told him coldly, but his eyes betrayed something that Palmer had never thought he would see, a silent plea. And suddenly he understood. Spender wanted him to make this good for Mulder, like a last request, a last good fucking before the boy's execution.

He nodded silently and gave another, slightly harder punch. Mulder howled and leapt on the table, again spraying the covering with his semen. For a moment Palmer was tempted to carry on punching, bringing Mulder to climax after climax until his heart gave out. It seemed a kindness, but as though he could read his thoughts, Spender gave a small shake of his head.

"Cut the sex show, Palmer," Collins complained. He had come here to watch Mulder scream and beg for mercy, not writhe in orgasm. "You said you could get your whole arm in," he challenged.

Palmer sighed, withdrew his hand, and began to re-lubricate his glove. Mulder's head was resting on the table now, his breath coming in harsh pants. His arms had given way and he was crouched in a v-shape, his widely stretched ass vividly displayed.

"Hold him," Palmer instructed Spender, and Spender took a firm but gentle grip on Mulder's shoulders to stop his body sliding as Palmer entered again.

There was no resistance this time; his hand sank easily into the mushy heat of Mulder's bowels. He carefully delved with his fingers, finding a route through Mulder's intestines, pausing to push aside anything that could rip and tear. He paused at Mulder's bladder, feeling for distention, then squeezed gently, pushing the liquid up and out.

"He's pissing himself," Parker-Thompson chortled.

"I'm pissing him," Palmer replied. "Watch," and he squeezed again, forcing more yellow liquid to squirt out onto the table.

The spectators laughed delightedly at the display. None of them understood that Palmer's intent wasn't Mulder's humiliation, but rather to ensure that Mulder's bladder was as small as possible.

Mulder groaned and writhed as Palmer's fingers continued to explore. Three inches of Palmer's wrist had followed his hand by now, and the audience was spellbound. Palmer stopped and pulled out once more.

He stripped the calving glove of his arm.

"Giving up?" Collins crowed.

"I can't feel what I am doing," Palmer replied and greased up his bare hand. He knew he was taking a risk. God only knew what infections Mulder was carrying, but he was determined to succeed and the rubber was preventing him from accurately gauging what was going on inside Mulder's ass.

He slid back in and used his fingers to explore what had confused him earlier. It seemed that Mulder's guts were completely empty; he obviously hadn't consumed anything solid for days. Since Mulder had managed to put on some weight since Miami, Palmer had assumed that the cleanliness of Mulder's ass was due to an enema, not a complete lack of food in the first place.

It was easy then to push aside the flattened intestines and make room. Having paved the way, he pulled his arm back until his hand was almost free and in a slow punching motion, he buried his arm until the thick muscle of his lower arm caught on Mulder's sphincter.

Mulder's scream of pure agony rocked the room. Palmer met Spender's furious glare and grinned as Mulder suddenly bucked and came again.

"Sometimes pain and pleasure are so closely linked that you can't separate them in your mind," Palmer told the room generally. "He is now in such a detached, confused state that you could chop one of his fingers off and he would cum. Not that I suggest you try it," he added as he saw Parker-Thomson's eyes flicker speculatively to Mulder's clenched hands.

"He doesn't seem to be enjoying it, though," Krycek drawled from the back, as Mulder's whimpering sobs filled the room.

"You think so?" Palmer challenged. He pulled his arm slowly out until only the tips of his fingers remained in Mulder's opening.

Mulder's groaning whimpers increased in volume and he thrust his ass desperately to re-capture Palmer's hand.

"Poor Fox, did that make you feel empty and abandoned?" Palmer whispered, sliding back in.

Mulder's groan of relief was clearly audible despite his accompanying yelps of pain.

"No wonder he's been such a fucking pain in the ass. That's why none of our threats have ever worked. The little pervert enjoys pain," one of the audience hissed in disgust.

"What's more perverted, enjoying your own pain, or enjoying the pain of another?" Spender asked casually.

The resultant, uncomfortable silence, punctured only by Mulder's pathetic whimpers, was finally broken by Collins sarcastic challenge.

"Come on, Palmer. Do it, to the elbow, now or concede the wager."

Palmer looked sorrowfully at Mulder. Although he was now sure that he wouldn't rupture the other man if he punched in, Palmer had realised that the thickest part of his lower arm wouldn't breach Mulder's rim without considerable ripping.

For a moment, he was actually tempted to concede. On the other hand, judging by the faces around him, he had a sinking feeling that people were already anticipating their own, inexperienced hands in Mulder's ass. The ripping would knock Mulder out and create so much blood that the show would finally be over, he decided.

His decision was reflected in Spender's eyes. He saw Spender bend down and whisper, "I'm sorry," to Mulder and then he straightened and faced Palmer.

"Finish it," he snapped.

Palmer drew back his arm, felt a moment's fresh guilt as Mulder whimpered at his withdrawal, and then he carefully punched back in with controlled, undeniable force.

Mulder howled a scream of such torment that it chilled even Krycek, blood splashed back at Palmer's suit, and his victim collapsed in a dead faint. He left his arm in place, wiped at the streaming blood until his audience could see that the very crook of his elbow was buried, and then he carefully withdrew.

Spender walked stiffly to the fireplace and rang a bell. Within a minute, several servants arrived and used the table as a makeshift stretcher to carry Mulder out of the room for treatment.

"He'll need several stitches," Palmer said casually, collecting his medical bag and following them out of the room.

"Why bother stitching him up?" Parker-Thompson asked the room in general.

"When the authorities find his body, we don't want them investigating a 'rape'. The presence of professional stitches will suggest that his accident and his anal trauma are unrelated," Spender answered smoothly.

"Won't they question his injuries and the stitches anyway?" Johnson asked worriedly.

"He is a known masochist, deeply into a BDSM lifestyle. Between his groin 'adornments' and the picture we send to Skinner, they will put his injuries down to rough sex games," Spender assured him. "I will go and check on Palmer's progress," he added, before the smug grins of his associates caused his churning stomach to throw up.

Krycek waited until he had left the room before approaching Parker-Thompson. The man's loathing for Mulder was obvious. Krycek was damned sure that he had found his ally.

~~~

Part Fourteen

Krycek dropped the sun-visor against the bright rays of sunlight that had begun to pierce the ever-lightening grey haze of dawn. His tired eyes watered endlessly, irritated by the dancing beams of bright light, and he struggled to concentrate on the endless black tarmac of the road.

It wasn't only the early sunlight, which was distracting his concentration. He had a deep gnawing ache in his gut. As much as he tried to tell himself that the knifing pains were hunger pangs, he knew the truth. He was scared.

He didn't like the feeling.

For a moment, he was tempted to swing the car around and head back to DC. It wasn't too late yet. It was only 7am, he had been driving for 6 hours, and if he turned around right now, he would be back in Washington by lunchtime, with plenty of time to stage Mulder's 'accident'.

Well, not plenty of time, since Skinner would be receiving the photos at nine, and Kersh had booked Mulder's assessment for 10am. Still, no one would really start worrying about Mulder until early afternoon. Skinner would check Mulder's apartment himself, Krycek guessed. It was unlikely that he would want anyone else to discover how Mulder had been reduced to living.

If anyone checked Mulder's bank account for withdrawals, they would soon discover Skinner's involvement in 'that' part of Mulder's life. So, it was likely that Skinner would spend at least the whole morning removing all evidence of his own involvement in Mulder's life, before admitting that Mulder had disappeared.

Only then would the hounds be unleashed to track Mulder down.

As long as Mulder's body was discovered by, say, 4pm, Spender would never discover that he had tried to defy him.

Krycek hit the brakes and swung the car to the side of the road. He left the engine idling, needing the comfort of the heater. Not that it was particularly effective. The warm air coughed and spluttered reluctantly around his ankles, barely enough to fight the chill of fear that pervaded his whole body. His very bones felt cold.

A muffled whimper, from behind him, reminded him that Mulder was probably frozen. He was lying naked in the unheated trunk and was probably so numb with cold that he couldn't feel his injuries any more.

Krycek began to wonder exactly how cold someone had to be before they got frostbite. He had a delicious image of Mulder's fingers and toes turning black and rotting off. The idea of Mulder losing his hands and feet was delightful, he decided, as the emptiness in his sleeve reminded him of exactly what crimes Mulder still had to pay for.

Mulder had to pay. He had to suffer.

Suffer. Not die.

Not yet, anyway.

Parker-Thompson had advised him to run, had suggested that he simply take Mulder away. For as long as Krycek could keep out of Spender's reach, he could keep Mulder alive.

Krycek had eagerly taken Parker-Thompson's suggestion, believing the old snake when he had promised to cover his ass with the rest of the consortium.

"Once the initial furor has died down," Parker-Thompson had told him. "Our associates will forgive you defying them. They will welcome the opportunity to see Mulder at the club again. All you have to do is keep him long enough for the FBI to close the case."

Parker-Thompson had pointed out that it would be in Skinner's own interest to let Mulder's disappearance be swept under the carpet.

"As soon as the Consortium realise that there was no 'need' to execute him, the sympathy will drift from Spender to you, and you will be able to come back from the cold. As a hero, dear boy," he had told Krycek.

And because it was what he 'wanted' to believe, Krycek had chosen to accept his assurances. It was only as the hours passed as he drove, and the implications of his own 'slipping the leash' truly sank in, that Krycek wondered whether Parker-Thompson had another agenda in mind.

What if his actions had merely put the noose around his own neck too? Had Parker-Thompson just encouraged his defiance so that he could be rid of Mulder AND himself?

Krycek could already feel ghostly skeletal fingers around his throat. He knew that the long arm of the consortium could reach out and find him anywhere. He had defied a simple straightforward order. He had been told to assassinate Mulder and instead he had thrown his target into the trunk of his car and fled.

It wasn't too late. He could turn around. He could take Mulder back to DC. Judging by the whining, animalistic whimpers from behind the back seat, Mulder was probably in so much agony that he would probably even agree to write his own suicide note, just for the chance to end the pain.

Yet, it was those very same sounds of Mulder's suffering, which hardened his resolve and gave him the courage to continue.

He didn't WANT to end Mulder's pain. He didn't want the little bastard to escape from him, even into death. He had barely scratched the surface of his vengeance and he wasn't willing to cut it short just because Spender had unexpectedly turned out to have some kind of weird hard-on for Mulder.

Krycek looked at himself in the rear-view mirror. He didn't understand it. Now they KNEW, what the fuck did everyone see in the slut anyway?

Admittedly, he had been fooled himself. He had been fascinated by Mulder himself since the first time he had met the arrogant little prick at Quantico. Mousy little Mulder, just some jumped up fucking Jew-boy who thought that his brilliance at his job made up adequately for his sorrowful lack of a personality.

He hadn't even 'noticed' Krycek. He had been too fucking wrapped up in the world according to Fox 'spooky' Mulder, to even glance past Krycek's bad haircut and cheap suits. With the condescension of an 'experienced' field agent, he had barely had the time of day for Krycek, never seeing beyond the mask of green naivety that Krycek portrayed.

"You never fucking noticed me, did you?" Krycek hissed into his reflection, his eyes flashing green fire. "I threw so many clues in your face that you should have been tripping over them, but you still hardly knew I existed."

And it was true. After his initial satisfaction about infiltrating the FBI so smoothly, after the first buzz of pride at his own deception had worn thin, Krycek had chafed at the role he was portraying.

He had wanted to grab Mulder by the lapels and shake him until he finally opened those muddy brown eyes and finally recognised the splendor that was Alex Krycek.

He had wanted those puppy eyes to finally realise that Krycek wasn't just a 'body' who inconveniently occupied space in his office.

And when, too late, he had finally noticed Krycek's true nature, instead of being impressed, instead of finally realising that he had met his match, Mulder had scorned him, had attacked him, and had tried to destroy him.

Yet still, even then, he had still looked up to Mulder.

He had believed the chaste, aura of sickening 'goodness' that Mulder portrayed. He had understood that Mulder was beyond his reach. He had reluctantly accepted that Mulder was untouchable, pure even. Like an innocent almost, too lost in his own intellectual fantasy world to ever sully himself with the darkness that was Alex Krycek.

He had been prepared to walk away, to wear the heavy mantle of bitter regret from afar, to accept that he was a dark moth that would always be singed by the flame of Mulder's goodness.

Only to find out that the man he had placed on a pedestal and had worshipped like some idol of perfection, had turned out to be a cheap fraud.

He was just a slut. A fucking, worthless slut.

Krycek laughed bitterly, remembering all the nights he had left the J. Edgar Hoover building, his leaving barely noticed by Mulder, only to troll the streets for hours, looking for someone, anyone, who looked even remotely like Mulder and then paying to fuck the stranger to mutual oblivion.

He had been like a mongrel stray left out in the cold, endlessly gazing at the perfection of Mulder, having to always relieve the terrible pressure of his lust in another's body, just to stop himself from throwing himself at Mulder's feet and begging for the privilege of even being fucking 'noticed', let alone touched.

And all the time, all the fucking time, it seemed that all he ever needed to do was throw Mulder over his desk and stick his cock up his ass.

"I would have fucking CRAWLED for you," Krycek screamed suddenly, his voice reverberating through the car. "All I wanted was for you to fucking NOTICE me! I thought you were special. I thought you were BETTER than me! And all the time, you were just a fucking SLUT!"

He slammed the car back into first and pulled back into the road with a squeal of tires. He was back into fifth and speeding along at 100kmph before he even registered that he was leaving DC even further behind.

He wasn't taking Mulder back.

It was payback time.

Mulder owed him. Owed him for his life. Owed him his arm for christsakes. Owed him for every moment he had wasted fantasizing about him. Mulder owed him every dollar he had ever spent, on every fucking whore he had paid, to relieve the ache in his balls that Mulder had caused.

Mulder was going to earn it back for him, on his fucking hands and knees where he belonged, and then, when it was over, only then, would Krycek put his out of his misery with a bullet through his brain.

~~~

Krycek laid low for a week, constantly moving, never spending more than one night in a Motel and then moving off in the early hours before anyone was awake to notice him bundling his 'passenger' back into the trunk.

He kept his radio on constantly, listening to news bulletins, then flicking restlessly through the cable channels in his motel rooms, endlessly checking for the new bulletin that would announce Mulder's disappearance.

Every time he turned on the TV sets, he half-expected his face or Mulder's to glare back from the screen.

Nothing. Not one word about Mulder's disappearance.

He stopped at a radio-shack and bought a police-band radio, aware that there could be a silent APB out on the missing Agent. Still, other than the regular reports of domestic violence, petty thefts and speeding violations, the radio was silent.

He had enough credit cards, in enough different identities, to fund his flight without leaving a trail, but he didn't dare access any cash. Although he had funds stashed in numerous safety deposit boxes all over the country, he was too aware of the possibility of Spender's knowledge of their existence. He wasn't willing to underestimate Spender's influence or the length of Spender's reach.

Scorning any other form of flight as being too traceable, and needing to keep Mulder out of sight, he continued to travel by car.

He changed cars daily. He alternated between simply stealing a set of plates from one town, then a vehicle from the next, with hiring a car under one of his aliases.

Except for the problem of manhandling Mulder from one trunk to another, and then having to stop the vehicle somewhere to drill an air hole before Mulder asphyxiated, the car changes went flawlessly.

He knew that people rarely reported that their plates had been stolen, assuming that it was the work of neighborhood kids. By putting the plates on a different, stolen car, he could drive right past a police car, knowing that they were looking for a model he was driving, certain that they would dismiss him with just a disinterested glance.

At the motels, he would always choose a room as far as possible from the office, then would wait until he was sure of no observers before bringing Mulder in from the car.

The first night, he had left Mulder in the trunk all night, but the next morning, Mulder had been so frozen that he had almost lost him. He had had to make a stop at a camping supplies store to buy an emergency thermal blanket. It had taken two hours in the foil wrap, with Krycek endlessly feeding him hot coffee from a thermos, before Mulder had finally stopped shivering. He had been too excited by the knowledge of Mulder's suffering to remember that people could literally die of hypothermia.

Since then, he had been more careful. He was deliberately using the need to lay low for a few days to give Mulder a chance to heal. He was well aware that people might balk at the idea of fucking a guy whose ass was stitched together. Of course, that unfortunately meant he couldn't fuck him either.

Still, although he couldn't fuck him, there were still advantages to letting Mulder share his motel rooms. The slut had a definite talent with his mouth. Besides, it gave him the opportunity to ratify his control.

He stole a duvet from one of the motels, concerned that Mulder's hips and shoulders were being scraped raw from being tossed around in the trunk of the cars. He counteracted the comfort of the padding, by handcuffing Mulder's hands behind his back and replacing the cock cage.

After sixteen hours in the trunk, Mulder would stagger into the motel rooms, his throat so parched that he would gulp down the jug of water that Krycek offered him, unable to stop himself from swallowing despite the raging pressure in his bladder.

It was fascinating to Krycek, that he never learned to refuse the water, despite the agony it then caused.

Krycek would immediately gag Mulder, to prevent his howls from alerting the neighbours, then would cuff him to the foot of the bed and watch him squirming in agony as his bladder and kidneys screamed in protest.

Krycek would set a small traveling alarm and put it on the floor by Mulder's face, so that he could see the minutes ticking with torturous slowness for precisely one hour, then he would finally release the cuffs and allow Mulder to crawl to the bathroom and relieve himself.

The daily ritual, quite apart from the pleasure Krycek took from watching Mulder's pain, soon had a beneficial effect on Mulder's attitude to him.

Krycek reaped the benefits of Mulder's relief. He discovered that after Mulder had finally been allowed to remove the cock-cage, he was willing to do anything to keep it off. He would kneel placidly at Krycek's feet, seemingly content to suckle on his Master's groin for hours, bringing Krycek to orgasm after orgasm and then swallowing his cum like a starving man at a banquet.

Since Krycek's cum was his main sustenance for those first few days, the analogy was probably correct. Krycek was careful to keep injecting anti-biotics into Mulder, but he preferred the lean and hungry look to his slut. Besides, he didn't want Mulder shitting before the rips in his ass had scabbed over and, anyway, keeping Mulder starving kept him too light-headed to even try any resistance.

Too many of the garages he stopped at to refuel had attendant service, for Krycek to be sure that even a gag would muffle any sounds of protest from the man in his trunk.

Each time he stopped at a filling station, Krycek kept one hand on his gun and his eyes in the rear-view mirror, carefully watching the attendant for any sign of interest in the contents of his trunk.

Keeping Mulder in a permanent daze of semi-conscious starvation, slowed the healing of his body, but ensured that he was too weak to scream for help. It was only when Krycek finally understood that Mulder, as miserable and terrified as he was of the dark, had no intention of trying to attract attention to himself, that he finally relented and began to feed him.

Feeding Mulder became a pleasure of its own. Krycek discovered the joys of watching Mulder literally drooling at his feet like a dog, watching him feast on whatever take-out he had picked up on route to the motel. Then doling out a mouthful at a time of his left-overs, forcing Mulder to hold each mouthful unchewed until he was given specific permission to swallow.

If Mulder's ravenous hunger made him forget himself and gulp at the first mouthful, Krycek would simply throw the remains of the meal in the bin and leave Mulder hungry.

Controlling Mulder's food and bodily functions gave Krycek a lever that physical abuse had failed to achieve. Mulder's tendency to go into orgasm in the middle of a beating made punishment practically useless as a training tool. The withholding of food and water was a far more effective form of control, and for sheer absolute domination, Krycek simply couldn't beat the simplicity of a catheter.

Within a week, Mulder learnt that his body was Krycek's. He couldn't piss without permission, he couldn't swallow without permission, he was beginning to believe he could barely even breathe without permission.

Finally satisfied by the glazed look of complete, broken submission in Mulder's eyes, Krycek decided it was time to start making his slut work for a living.

The whip marks had faded to red angry scars. Krycek had unpicked the stitches with a penknife, leaving just a couple of nasty nicks in Mulder's ass, and Mulder had reacted with appropriate enthusiasm to Krycek's 'testing' that his ass was sufficiently tight again.

Still wary of discovery, Krycek kept a low-profile, taking Mulder to back-street clubs. Although he knew that as soon as he sold Mulder's ass in a place like that, he wouldn't even dare let Mulder give him even a blow-job anymore, the poetic justice of letting a slut like Mulder catch whatever venereal diseases he obviously deserved, more than made up for his own deprivation.

To his surprise, however, no one took him up on his offer of Mulder 'bare'. Although he found an endless queue of takers for Mulder's ass, they all had the sense to don condoms first.

It was probably Mulder's increasing emaciation that put them off, he finally decided. Mulder already looked like a poster campaign for the need for safe sex.

For the next two weeks, Krycek enjoyed the dubious pleasure of selling Mulder to the highest bidder, his only demand being that he was allowed to watch Mulder being reamed.

Accepting his condition as being just a weird kink, stupidly assuming that a one-armed gimp was no threat to them, the punters usually agreed, apparently deciding that fucking the whore in front of his 'boyfriend' was a thrill of its own.

After the strangers had left, as their cum was still dripping out of Mulder's ass, Krycek would angrily demand to know how Mulder felt, whether he had enjoyed the fucking, whether their cocks had felt as good in his ass as his own.

Although Mulder had never had the nerve to refuse to perform, his compliance was always tearful and shamed. He would strip silently, kneel on the motel bed and simply submit to being fucked. Only when the punters were brutal did his own cock twitch with interest, and to Krycek's disgust, it was only when he was being savagely pounded that he would come to life, squirming and bucking under the assault.

It sickened Krycek that he had dreamed so often of tenderly making love to Mulder, slowly proving to him that another man could give him pleasure, only to discover that Mulder was only turned on by rape.

At first Mulder tried to answer his questions, as though in finding answers for Krycek he would also manage to understand himself why it felt so good, to be hurt so badly.

He tried to convince Krycek to stop selling his body, instinctively recognizing that Krycek's questions were fuelled by the jealousy of seeing another man take him. Yet, if anything, his tearful pleas for Krycek to keep him for himself, only seemed to drive Krycek's determination to whore him.

Krycek deliberately began to choose the largest, roughest looking punters, then when they had fucked Mulder into mindless orgasm, he would spend the subsequent hours screaming abuse at him for coming.

"You're a slut," he would scream. "A fucking, worthless slut," and then he would beat Mulder senseless, as often as not inadvertently bringing him to climax again, and then beating him for his reaction to the stimulus of his fists.

Trapped in a nightmare circle of rape, abuse for responding to the rape, then abuse for responding to the abuse, only followed by more rape, by the middle of the week, Mulder stopped talking. There was no answer he could give to Krycek that wouldn't be the 'wrong' answer, so too terrified of saying the wrong thing, he simply gave up answering at all.

He would just look at Krycek dumbly, as he screamed his tirades, as though the ability to even understand speech had left him. No matter how badly Krycek beat him to make him reply, he would simply curl up into a whimpering ball, quivering with terror, his eyes as dull and moronic as an animal's.

Bitterly disappointed by Mulder's unresponsiveness, Krycek finally decided that Mulder was no longer suffering, because Mulder didn't seem to exist anymore. Silent, passive and docile, Mulder simply submitted to everything, his face so expressionless that not even fear was reflected in his dull, lifeless features anymore.

"Where have you gone?" he screamed in impotent fury. "Where the fuck are you hiding, Fox?"

But still, the dumb eyes just gazed at him, as blank and unseeing as a mannequin's. Safe in his silence, Mulder simply continued to lock himself away in that part of his mind he had discovered during those long weeks in the Safe House. It was a place where the pain and fear couldn't touch him. Day by day he burrowed deeper into the secret hiding place, beginning to close the walls around himself, preparing the barricades that would eventually keep him safe in this place forever.

Increasingly aware that Mulder was sinking into catatonia, Krycek grew frantic. The idea that Mulder had escaped him, had managed to avoid his vengeance by disappearing somewhere inside his own head, leaving only a shell behind, incensed Krycek.

He had put his own life on the line. He was running barely one step ahead of Spender, and for what? For a vengeance that Mulder was refusing to let him claim.

He wasn't going to allow it. He would bring Mulder back into reality even if he had to give him fucking electric shock treatments to do so, he told himself. Then the idea crystallized in his head, causing a slow smile to creep across his features.

The next day, he stopped the car at a farm implements warehouse and purchased a cattle prod with adjustable settings. Pretending to be concerned that his 'children' might accidentally find the device, he had a long conversation with the storekeeper, establishing exactly how high the device could be set without actually killing a person, then he returned to his car.

Not willing to risk using the prod in his motel room, at least not until he had established how loudly Mulder would scream, he pulled the car off the highway, and deeply into a copse of trees before retrieving Mulder from the trunk and handcuffing him to a tree.

He started with the lowest setting, just touching Mulder's buttocks and watching with interest as Mulder spasmed and howled.

"Just ask me to stop, and I'll stop," he said.

Mulder's eyes remained blank as he pretended not to understand. Krycek wasn't surprised, Mulder hadn't uttered a word in 10 days now.

Turning the prod up a notch he applied it to Mulder's other cheek.

This time, Mulder's convulsions were more spectacular, he humped against the tree, the muscles of his back spasming in reaction.

"You back with me yet?" Krycek purred.

He grabbed Mulder's hair and wrenched his head back. Sweat was pouring off Mulder's forehead and for a moment, Krycek was positive that there was a flash of awareness in the haunted eyes.

He released the cuffs, laid Mulder down on his back and touched the prod to the ball-ring. He had to jump back to avoid Mulder's flailing convulsions. Mulder's eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth frothed as he jerked on the floor like an epileptic. By the time his spasming limbs had collapsed back into lifelessness, he was lying in a pool of piss and excrement.

Eyes stark with horror, Mulder saw Krycek reach down again with the prod and his resolve to remain silent broke. He couldn't imagine any way in which speaking could make the current situation worse.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" he wailed.

Krycek smirked.

"Glad to see you have decided to wake up, Fox. But just in case you haven't learnt your lesson yet," he crowed ecstatically, "here's a little reminder."

He applied the prod again. He had turned the setting down to minimum, having been frightened himself by Mulder's fit, so this time the convulsions were less dramatic, but the howls and sobs were more 'human', in his opinion. Mulder definitely seemed to have decided to stop pretending that he was unaware of his surroundings. Even more interestingly, this time, instead of losing control of his bowels, Mulder came with a scream.

So, Krycek considered, too much pain and Mulder simply switched off, but just 'enough' pain and it turned him on instead.

He was going to have to rethink his treatment of Mulder. He needed to keep him on this edge without letting him slip over. He wasn't arrogant enough to assume that his impromptu 'shock therapy' had any real medical basis. If Mulder had truly been as out of it as he had pretended, then the prod wouldn't have worked.

Nevertheless, he was confident that he had taught Mulder a real lesson today.

"The next time I ask you a question and you pretend not to understand it, I will turn the setting up," he promised and enjoyed the way that Mulder shivered in chastened horror.

Krycek looked at Mulder's filthy body in disgust. There was no way of cleaning him up, he realised. Mulder would just have to travel to the next hotel covered in his own shit. It didn't concern him. Having achieved his objective, he instantly lost interest in Mulder's state of mind. As he closed the trunk over his miserable slave, his only concern was that the smell might permeate the car interior.

~~~

"You hot?" Krycek asked.

Mulder flinched, but nodded helplessly, his face filled with unmistakable longing as he watched Krycek devouring the ice lolly he had wandered off an bought for himself as Mulder washed the caked in shit off his backside in the motel shower.

Krycek looked at him thoughtfully. Mulder's hair was still plastered to his skull from his shower, but the dampness was no longer just water, the humid evening air was causing perspiration to drip down a face already flushed with fever. His eyes had lost the blank bovine stare, yet the change wasn't necessarily an improvement, in Krycek's opinion. Mulder's eyes were instead worryingly bright, darting like trapped animals in the cage of his face.

Krycek began to wonder whether he had brought Mulder back from his catatonia, only to lose him instead to madness.

"You want one?" He asked mildly, more interested in whether Mulder was actually listening to him, than whether Mulder wanted an ice lolly.

Mulder looked at him nervously, uncertain whether Krycek was simply teasing him. More afraid of not answering, however, he licked his lips and nodded hesitantly.

To his surprise, Krycek shrugged, rose to his feet and left the room. He returned a few minutes later with another large ice lolly.

Mulder began to salivate as Krycek unwrapped it, his hot, dry mouth already tasting the delicious cold of the treat.

"You want this, slut?" Krycek asked, his mouth quirking.

"Yes, please, Master," he whispered.

"Open wide then," Krycek sniggered.

Mulder opened his mouth and Krycek rammed the whole length into it. Mulder gagged and choked as the thick frozen stick filled his mouth. Krycek pulled it out and grinned.

"What's wrong, Fox? Don't you want it?" he mocked.

"It's too big," Mulder gasped, His lips felt almost burnt by the intense cold and his teeth were tingling unpleasantly, their nerve endings seared by the ice.

"Well, if it's too big for your mouth, I guess we will just have to put it somewhere else, won't we?" Krycek sniggered. "Bend over," he snapped.

Realisation dawned on Mulder's face and he began to whimper pathetically, yet to Krycek's considerable satisfaction, he didn't hesitate to obey. Bracing his fingers on the coffee table, he bent over and exposed his ass.

Krycek sucked the end of the lolly, until it was covered in orangey slime, then he poked it into Mulder's pucker. Mulder flinched and yelped, his sphincter automatically tightening to refuse the invader.

With a grunt of effort, Krycek shoved the entire ice lolly into Mulder's spasming hole, only stopping when just the tip of the stick was still visible.

Mulder choked back his instinctive howl of pain. Although the ice burned as Krycek forced it between his cheeks and deep inside his ass, as the chill spread through his bowels, it cooled and numbed his raw flesh and he groaned in relief as the searing pain transformed into near bliss.

All too soon, however, the heat of his passage quickly melted the invader and he felt the sticky juice running down the insides of his thighs until the wooden stick tumbled to the floor.

Krycek replaced it with his cock, sliding in easily through the sticky entrance, and Mulder moaned happily as warmth dispelled his internal chill. He thrust his hips back to impale himself on Krycek's slick flesh, then concentrated on bracing his arms to prevent Krycek's thrusts from sending him head-first through the coffee table.

The pain and humiliation of the cattle prod and the ice lolly instantly forgotten, Mulder groaned ecstatically under Krycek's assault, the pounding pressure on his prostate driving all thoughts out of his head other than the fiery burn in his own groin. Unfettered by the cock-cage, Mulder was free to take pleasure in the act, and instinctively he grabbed the opportunity, bucking into Krycek's thrusts until he came all over the coffee table with a strangled scream.

Krycek pulled out before the hot friction of Mulder's internal spasms brought him to climax too. He had decided to discover how long he could keep his erection by alternately chilling and then thawing Mulder's ass.

Leaving Mulder slumped over the table, he headed for the office to purchase another lolly. Then he passed the ice dispenser and paused thoughtfully. It was a waste of money to buy ice when there was a whole container there for free, he decided.

He returned to the room with a sack of ice chips and told Mulder to sit on the edge of the sofa and put his legs up on the coffee table.

Mulder's groin was still red and swollen from the application of the cattle prod, Krycek noted, but since Mulder had already demonstrated that no permanent harm had been done, Krycek deliberately dropped the bag on Mulder's lap, causing Mulder to squeal in protest as the cold penetrated his naked groin.

Stepping between Mulder's open legs, Krycek reached into the sack, took a handful of the ice chips and bent down to press them into Mulder's hole.

Mulder yelped, as the sharp edges of the ice scraped his skin and then intense cold burnt his passage yet again. Krycek followed the first handful with a second and a third, stuffing the chips deeper into Mulder's ass, enjoying the way that he squirmed and whimpered but made no effort to stop him.

Krycek felt his hand growing painfully numb and stepped back.

"Finish it yourself, Fox. All of it."

Mulder looked wide-eyed at the sack and then at Krycek in disbelief.

"DO IT," Krycek growled.

He smirked as Mulder folded under his gaze and began to thrust his own hands between his legs, pushing the ice into himself.

When the bag was half-empty and the melting liquid was already trickling back out of Mulder's ass and pooling on the floor, Krycek climbed between the open legs, threw them over his shoulders and entered him again.

This time the coldness hurt his own dick. Somehow the ice chips were actually colder than the lolly, he realised. Maybe because they were water not juice, he reasoned. He was so busy contemplating the difference between the sensation of melted lolly and melted ice, that he nearly missed Mulder's second orgasm. He barely wrenched himself out in time.

Ignoring Mulder's evident exhaustion, and the decidedly swollen look of his ass, Krycek made Mulder repeat the process with the remains of the bag.

The third time Krycek entered him, he was amused to discover that Mulder's enthusiasm for being fucked seemed to have fled, melting away with the last ice chips presumably. Amused by the unexpected limpness of Mulder's dick, Krycek reamed the abraded passage, drawing the torture out. He alternated between deliberately speeding up as though he was near climax, and then, just as Mulder was shuddering and gasping in the anticipation of relief, he would slow down again.

Listening to Mulder's sobbing whimpers, Krycek was again reminded of his earlier realisation. Mulder was a pain-slut. He actually enjoyed being hurt, but take it TOO far, and Mulder was just as vulnerable to pain as anyone else. He might have a high pain-threshold, but breach it and he suffered beautifully.

Allowing Mulder 'some' pleasure would give him reason to stay sane, Krycek decided. All he had to do, to ensure his own revenge, was make certain that pain always eventually exceeded the pleasure.

~~~

Part Fifteen

They had been constantly on the run for four weeks, before Krycek decided that he had to take the chance of contacting Parker-Thompson, to discover what was going on back in DC. The continual silence on his police-band radio suggested that Skinner had managed to cover up Mulder's disappearance, so the Consortium should have called off Spender's hounds by now.

Yet, three times in this last week, his credit cards had been rejected as soon as he had attempted to use them a second time. On the third occasion, Krycek had watched helplessly as a young Motel clerk had checked his computer, then had produced a pair of scissors and had cut the card up in front of Krycek's face.

If the clerk had had any idea of how close Krycek had come to pulling out his pistol and firing, it would have undoubtedly wiped the smart-ass smirk off his acne-scarred face.

Nevertheless, Krycek had managed to control his rage. He had wordlessly stalked back to his car and booked in at another Motel, with another card, with the sinking certainty that by the same time tomorrow, 'that' card would suffer the same fate.

Krycek was quickly running out of identities. As fast as he used a credit card, it was being cancelled, which convinced him that Spender was not only still hot on his tail but was probably no more than a day behind him now.

So he gave in to his growing panic and called the number that Parker-Thompson had given him to ring in case of an emergency, only to find that the line had been disconnected. The flat tone didn't surprise him. It fitted with his growing suspicion that he had been set-up. Yet the confirmation of his fears still knifed into his guts, increasing the nagging ache of fear into spiraling terror.

Like a cornered wild animal, however, Krycek wasn't debilitated by the knowledge that Spender's noose was growing inexorably tighter around his neck. Instead, the fear sparked his aggression and inevitably, Mulder paid the price.

Already incensed that he had been unable to find any takers for Mulder's ass for the last several days, Krycek blamed Mulder for their lack of cash. He used the excuse of poverty to cut Mulder's food back to a bare minimum, seemingly oblivious to the fact that it was Mulder's almost skeletal thinness that was making him unmerchantable.

In the punters' eyes, an emaciated whore was a diseased whore and they wanted no part of him in the type of semi-respectable clubs that they visited. Krycek had been reluctant to take Mulder to the places where 'any' ass could be sold. As a one-armed man, he looked too vulnerable as Mulder's pimp. While he was confident of his ability to deal with anyone who might try to wrest Mulder off him, any violence or trouble would be like lighting a neon arrow over his head, for Spender to hone in on.

The rapidity of Mulder's weight loss had been increased by Krycek's decision to re-instate his morning run. They always left the Motels in the small hours of the morning before anyone was awake. As soon as they left the city limits and reached a quiet stretch of road, Krycek would open the trunk, attach Mulder's ball-ring to the tow-bar with a long chain and then would make him trot behind the car for half-an-hour or so, only stopping when Mulder began to stumble with fatigue.

To an extent, the exercise had helped Mulder at first. It was his only opportunity to breathe real air before his daily hours of incarceration in the trunk would begin. His colour improved, his muscle tone returned and despite the knowledge that a fall would castrate him, the relative freedom of the mindless running was Mulder's only escape from the coffin-like terror of the trunk.

However, as soon as Krycek returned him to his semi-starvation diet, the running became agony. Without fuel to burn, his muscles soon filled with amino acids, causing him to cramp and stumble behind the car, only his blind terror keeping him on his feet.

Within a fortnight, the physical and mental strain began to show visibly, as his weight dropped still further and his muscular contractions continued for hours after the run, sometimes still causing him to jerk and spasm well into the evening, like a crazed marionette, further ensuring that the punters steered well clear of him.

The regime of near-starvation that Krycek imposed, coming on top of over six-months of poor nutrition, began to take a serious toll on Mulder's already abused psyche. Deprived of necessary proteins and carbohydrates, Mulder sank into a clinical depression. His brain processes slowed to such a point that he struggled to stay awake, let alone think coherent thoughts.

His abused body was slow to heal and began to bruise so easily that despite the padding in the trunk, his already stark hip bones blackened to match the permanent darkness of his protruding ribs. His vision blurred, in eyes already so sunken in his anemic face that they had the deep flat cast of a corpse, and his cock hung lifelessly between his emaciated thighs, as almost all sexual interest drained away with his increasing lethargy.

Krycek was finding it increasingly difficult to even inspire fear in him anymore. No longer capable of hope, resigned to the nightmare of his existence by his increasing inability to even remember that his life had once been different, Mulder simply endured all that Krycek did to him without even a token complaint.

Yet his compliance was like a red-rag to Krycek. As though Mulder's obedience was simply an attempt to deny him the pleasure of chastising him, Krycek found himself pushing even harder, desperately chasing each spark of Mulder's remaining humanity just to crush it underfoot.

So, it was in the early hours of the morning, as they were returning to an underground car park after another unsuccessful evening at a gay bar, that Krycek's rage and frustration inspired him to invent a new barbarous form of punishment for Mulder's failure.

"Well, it's too late now to find a motel, so I guess we had better move on to the next town," he said quietly.

Mulder bit his lip. He had learned to be particularly wary of Krycek when he 'sounded' calm. So he was already trembling with nervous anticipation as he obediently went towards the rear bumper and began stripping quietly out of the clothes he had worn to the club.

He shuffled impatiently from foot to foot, the tarmac cold on his bare soles, and waited for Krycek to pop the trunk release. The trunk, once so terrifying, was now his only refuge from Krycek's rage. Nothing in his imagination had ever equaled the nightmare of the reality of life with Krycek. He longed for the oblivion that the darkness promised, for the whispering voices that filled his head and drove away all thought and memory, until he was dragged back out into harsh reality when the car stopped.

Instead, Krycek picked up Mulder's clothes, threw them on the backseat, then told Mulder to get in the passenger seat.

Bewildered by the order, his mind stuttering helplessly as the familiar routine was so abruptly changed, Mulder silently shuffled to the passenger door. He froze for a moment, his befuddled brain struggling to even remember how a car door opened, so when his left hand took over, reaching out instinctively to pull at the door handle, he slid inside the car with such shivering relief that he barely noticed when Krycek climbed in the driver's seat and turned to look at him with a decidedly wolfish grin.

Forced, by lack of available choice, to steal a car with a manual stick-shift the previous evening, Krycek had parked in the underground car park with the intention of stealing a different model. He found the necessity to change gears manually a chore with his prosthetic arm.

During the long, fruitless evening in the bar, however, his imagination had taken flight, fuelled by several large vodkas, and he had devised a more interesting way to manage the gear changes.

"I want you to change gears for me," he told Mulder. "If you do it properly, you can travel in the car. If not, then it's your morning run and then back in the trunk."

The words just floated around the edges of Mulder's brain, fluttering like butterflies on the periphery of his understanding. "Run", that was a bad thing, he understood that much, the word alone made his legs spasm and ache and he could feel his balls tightening against his body. "Trunk" wasn't a bad thing though, it was a good word, a safe word. He squirmed in the seat, battling his sudden urge to leap out of the car and run to his sanctuary.

He heard Krycek take a deep, outraged breath at his lack of response, and he shivered as a deeply buried grain of animal cunning whispered to him that he couldn't let Krycek know, couldn't admit that the trunk no longer terrified him, or that one last refuge would be ripped away too. He struggled to understand the choice Krycek was offering. It had been so long since he had been allowed to make any decision that he could barely remember the concept of choice.

"Gears," he mumbled experimentally, trying the word on his lips in the hope that memory would return. Gears, gears, gears. A memory surfaced, wavering with tantalizing vagueness at the edges of his consciousness.

Spurred by Krycek's grunt of impatience, the memory coalesced, dropping into focus in Mulder's mind and he gave a gasp of relief. A hopeful smile spread over his face and he grasped the gear stick with triumphant eagerness.

"I want to change the gears," he announced.

Krycek gave a chilling laugh.

"Not with your hands, Fox. I want you to use your ass. Maybe you can prove it still has ONE use, after all, since I can't even give it away."

For a long time, Mulder just looked at him blankly. the slowly his eyes began to widen as the meaning of Krycek's words finally registered. Krycek grinned in satisfaction as Mulder's placid expression began to warp into horror. It was becoming increasingly difficult for Krycek to break through Mulder's haze of incomprehension, so whenever he managed snap Mulder back to reality, he relished the moment.

Mulder regarded the gear knob in disbelief and shuddered at the idea of taking it inside himself. He quickly averted his eyes, as though his failure to look would make the gear stick disappear, and tried desperately to regain his previous state of detachment.

Having finally caught Mulder's attention, however, Krycek had no intention of letting him off the hook that easily.

"It's your choice, cunt," Krycek shrugged, delighted by the deep flush that burned Mulder's face at his term. Mulder's obvious humiliation proved conclusively that he was capable of understanding his words.

"It's your morning run or the gear stick," he announced firmly.

"Please, Master," Mulder whispered, as Krycek's cruel words chased away the cobwebs in his brain and forced him to face the depths that he had been reduced to. "Don't make me do it, please."

"What are you?" Krycek demanded coldly.

For a moment, Mulder dared to raise his face to Krycek's. His misery and torment were clearly etched in his features as he silently begged for a reprieve. Krycek's cruel grin simply widened with such obvious triumph that Mulder flinched and dropped his eyes in defeat.

"I am your slut, Master," he said, with a heartrending sob.

"My what?" Krycek hissed, wallowing in Mulder's obvious misery.

"Your worthless slut, Master," Mulder corrected fearfully.

"And I don't have to give you a choice, do I?"

"No, Master," Mulder sobbed.

"So I'm too kind a master for a worthless slut, aren't I?" Krycek smirked.

"Yes, Master," Mulder whispered in defeat.

Krycek grasped Mulder's chin with his prosthetic hand and roughly forced him to look at the gear stick, uncaring of the bruises that immediately started to form around Mulder's jaw.

"It's a lot smaller than my hand, and you manage that well enough. SIT ON IT!"

Mulder began to cry helpless tears of humiliation, but he had learnt the futility of defiance too well for him to refuse. He spread his legs over the console and squatted until the gear knob pressed against his ass. Then he pushed against the leather, flinching as the blunt width caught on his sphincter.

Krycek lost patience, grabbed Mulder's shoulders and forced him downwards until the knob was firmly imbedded inside Mulder's hole. His lips curved into a grin as Mulder's howl of pain resounded through the car.

"Now," he smirked. "We are going to take a drive, and you are going to change the gears. If you crunch them, you are going to discover that there are more parts of a car that will fit inside your slutty little ass."

Mulder couldn't even begin to imagine how he was supposed to change the gears. He turned his tear-stained face towards Krycek and his voice emerged in a broken quiver.

"I don't know how," he wailed.

"Grip the stick with your ass, think about where the gears are and when I tell you, MOVE!" Krycek spat impatiently.

Slowly the car limped around the car park. Each time Mulder made a mistake, or lost his tight grip on the stick, the resultant buck of the car made the gear knob batter his insides like a fist. He was sobbing in agony, tears pouring down his cheeks, but pain and necessity slowly taught him control.

He was almost proud as he finally managed to move the car through an entire shift change from 1st to 5th without a hitch. He turned to look at Krycek, his eyes shining with relief and he tried a tentative smile.

Now that he had gone past the worst, and had learnt to accept the gear knob in his ass, he was actually beginning to hope that Krycek would let him continue.

Despite the initial awareness of his discomfort and humiliation, his cock, which had been barely responsive for days, had begun to weep excitedly from the fierce vibration of the knob against his prostate. The over-stimulation of his body began to dampen his mental awareness once more. Wanting only to be allowed to sink back into the relief of sub-space, he desperately searched Krycek's face for approval of his efforts.

"Now, reverse," Krycek said with a snort of amusement at Mulder's pathetic expression. "You have to hold it down as you move it."

Mulder tried, clenching the stick and pressing downwards until his intestines screamed in protest, but it was impossible. The gear knob was already too deeply embedded in his ass for any muscular control.

"I can't, Master," he finally admitted, his cheeks flaring with humiliation at his failure.

"Then you will have to run, after all," Krycek promised grimly.

Terror forced Mulder to beg for another try. Repeatedly he pushed down on the gear stick, bruising his insides with his frantic efforts. Still, the gear stick refused to move.

"I can't, Master," he finally confessed, his sweat-drenched forehead collapsing against the dashboard in defeat.

"Of course you can't," Krycek laughed. "It isn't possible."

"Then - then you aren't angry with me, Master?" Mulder begged hopefully.

"You tried," Krycek said with a shrug. He waited until Mulder's shoulders relaxed and then his hand shot out and grabbed Mulder's engorged cock. He had attached the chain to the ball-ring before Mulder even knew what was happening.

"You said I tried," Mulder whimpered.

"Yes, but you still failed," Krycek smirked. He took Mulder by the shoulders and wrenched him up off the stick. Mulder howled again as the large knob tore back out of his hole.

"We really are going to have to do some more stretching exercises, Fox. You've got blood all over my car. Lick it up."

Obediently Mulder turned and licked the blood and mess off the gear stick. Then with a fierce wrench on his balls, Krycek dragged Mulder out of the car, tied his hands behind his back, and chained him to the tow bolt.

"Time for your morning run, Fox," he grinned.

"But we're still in town, Master," Mulder gasped, the shock of the cold air on his naked body forcing an unwelcome clarity to his thoughts.

"I know. I don't care," Krycek mocked as he climbed in the driver's seat.

He kept the car in low gear as he headed for the ramp, only speeding up when Mulder had achieved a smooth pace. He didn't want to rip the slut's balls off by accident. Then he increased the speed until Mulder was at full pelt, his feet ripped by the tarmac as he tried to keep some slack in the chain.

Krycek slowed the car to a crawling pace as they emerged onto the street, worried that Mulder would be too distracted, by the humiliation of being towed through the town, to concentrate on staying upright.

Krycek was pretty sure that anyone still out at this time of the early morning would be either too drunk to report him or too busy with their own activities to care, but he put his gun on the passenger seat just in case.

In this way he dragged Mulder naked through the centre of town.

He had a moment of worry when they passed a group of rowdy teenage drunks who were presumably still staggering home from a club. Noticing the bizarre procession, they approached for a closer inspection. But instead of the horrified protest Krycek expected, all the teenagers did was crowd around Mulder with obvious fascination, slapping his ass and telling him to run faster.

"Hey , Mister. What you doin'?" one of them yelled through the car window.

"Just taking my dog for a walk," Krycek replied with a grin of disbelief at the way that the boys were heckling Mulder rather than trying to help him. No wonder the country was going to hell, he decided.

"Some fucking dog, you got!" the youngster smirked, his face twisted with an expression of evident envy at Krycek's nerve.

"Want his ass?" Krycek replied with an answering smirk. "Ten bucks a piece."

The boy's mouth dropped open with almost comical shock.

"We ain't no fucking queers!" he gasped, but his eyes darted hungrily at Mulder and his virgin cock leapt at the thought of having something other than fingers around it.

"'Course you aren't queers. Shame to let such a nice warm fuck-hole go to waste, just 'cos HE'S a queer, though!" Krycek replied easily, gesturing towards Mulder with obvious contempt.

"Don't want no trouble," the teenager said regretfully, his face clouding as the possible consequences of rape warred with his drunken libido.

"Hey, no trouble. He's just a queer, isn't he? Anyway, he's begging for it, I guarantee," Krycek assured with a wink.

The three teenagers huddled together, whispering loudly and occasionally glancing at the trembling Mulder. Just when Krycek was preparing to drive off again, deciding that the boys were too scared to take him up on his offer, one of the teenagers finally admitted the reason for their argument.

"We only got twenty bucks between us," one of the teenagers finally sighed.

"No problem, lets call it a special three for two offer," Krycek grinned.

He stopped the engine, pocketed his gun just in case of trouble, and stepped out to approach Mulder.

"Bend over the bonnet, spread 'em and beg them to fuck you. Give a good show and I'll let you back in the car, piss me off and I'll drag you all the way to the next town," he whispered in Mulder's ear.

He laughed in delight as Mulder's dull-eyed stare acknowledged the futility of resistance. He released the chain and Mulder staggered silently to the bonnet and leaned over, spreading his legs to reveal his stretched, bloody hole.

Too young to control their libidos, the three drunken boys didn't wait for any further invitation. They jostled with each other, each barely managing to unfasten their pants and get their dicks inside, before they shot their loads and staggered back with loud yells of triumph, leaving Mulder collapsed over the bonnet, his thighs streaked with semen.

Conscious that dawn was rapidly approaching and that the quiet street could soon awaken with early morning traffic, Krycek hauled Mulder unceremoniously to his feet and dragged him to rear of the car.

"How the mighty have fallen, huh, Fox?" Krycek mocked. "I couldn't even get them to pay ten bucks for your ass without throwing in a freebie."

Mulder flinched miserably. "I'm sorry, Master," he whispered.

Krycek had to bite his lips to stop himself roaring with laughter. When he regained control, he just snapped "Get in," and gestured at the open trunk.

Mulder looked fearfully at the dark space, then back at the sniggering teenagers who were still fastening their clothing and exchanging excited boasts about their individual prowess, and quickly made the decision to haul his sore body inside. He whimpered as the lid closed and the darkness whispered around him, but then the increasingly familiar blanket of numbness descended and he sank into welcome oblivion.

Krycek used the twenty to top up the tank. It felt good to have cash money again. He was rapidly running out of plastic and didn't want to waste the cards needlessly.

Since the boys hadn't used condoms, Krycek decided that he wasn't going to risk fucking Mulder himself anymore. It never even occurred to him that, even drunk as they were, they had only accepted his offer because it was the first sexual experience they had ever been offered.

Mulder might as well start earning his keep again, he decided. The teenagers had proved that as long as he kept the price low and offered him in the *right* kind of dive, there would be no questions asked about Mulder's emaciation, bruises and scars.

He drove all day until they reached the outskirts of a larger town and then he pulled over in a lay by and opened the trunk. He was pleased to discover that Mulder had managed to hold himself. He was desperately clutching his genitals as though the pressure was agonising, but he hadn't dared wet himself even though Krycek hadn't remembered to put the cock-cage on him.

"Good boy," Krycek purred into Mulder's glazed eyes. "Get out and piss."

Mulder scrambled out of the car, his cock leaking before he even made it to the side of the road.

Krycek waited until he had finished, then handed him the water-filled shampoo bottle that he had devised as a make-shift douche.

"Clear it ALL out," he growled, "Here, where I can see you. One foot on the bumper, that's right."

A couple of cars passed, but Krycek ensured that his own body blocked the sight of the naked man giving himself an enema on the side of the road. Unaware that he couldn't be observed, Mulder wept in humiliation as he voided onto the tarmac, then Krycek handed him a couple of wet wipes, a t-shirt and a pair of jeans.

"Clean up, get dressed and get in the car," he instructed.

When Mulder crept into the passenger door, he was subdued but kept giving Krycek nervous looks.

"What?" he demanded.

"They're ripped, the jeans. I didn't do it." Mulder whispered nervously. The jeans were split from just under the waist band right around to the crotch. The loose t-shirt covered the gaping hole but he was all too aware of the feel of his naked ass on the car seat. He was terrified that his bare ass was so that Krycek could make him 'change gears' again.

"I know they are ripped. That will make things easier. You are going to work tonight," Krycek laughed.

"Work?" Mulder asked in confusion.

"We need money, you are going to earn it, like you did before. Since you are too fucking ugly now for decent punters, we'll just have to find some takers desperate enough to buy even your sorry ass."

Mulder didn't even bother trying to refuse, he just started to cry.

"Shut the fuck up, slut, or I will really give you something to cry about," Krycek snarled.

Mulder sniffed and rubbed his eyes but slowly managed to reduce his plaintive sobbing to the occassional sniffle.

The first gay bar they tried was still too conservative, but Krycek quickly got the feel for the *right* kind of bar. It didn't take him long to find a taker for Mulder's ass. It amused him that even in a bar like this the punter still insisted on wearing a condom. Still, as long as he got the cash, he didn't care what they put up Mulder's ass now.

And so the new phase of their relationship began.

Every night Krycek would drive to a new town, let Mulder out of the trunk, make him clean himself and dress in the torn jeans and then would sell him to half a dozen punters for ten bucks a go. He delighted in telling Mulder how cheap his ass was, that he really *was* a worthless $10 whore now.

Sometimes Mulder would be taken in the bathroom, other times he would just be jammed against the bar and reamed, his ripped jeans allowing a relatively secret fuck in a dark bar.

Deciding that Mulder was probably harboring a multitude of infections, Krycek no longer even allowed Mulder to blow him, but after he purchased a calving-glove he delighted in experimenting with how far he could get his arm up Mulder's hole.

After Palmer's success at the club, Krycek had been obsessed with the idea of equaling Palmer's act and his inability to use Mulder in any other fashion inspired his urge to experiment. It continually amazed him that the muscles of Mulder's fuck-hole could ever return to their previous size. after he had sunk his arm to his elbow inside Mulder's body.

Krycek still found no sexual pleasure in the act, but the thrill of so completely dominating another's body was like a heady drug. Some nights, after Mulder had been stretched and pummeled by his punters, Krycek would make Mulder strip and lie on the bonnet of the car, his ass exposed to the elements and he would fist fuck him in the car park of whatever motel they were stopped at.

It was the danger and the idea of an audience that thrilled him. He would sometimes see curtains twitching as people watched in horrified fascination as he proved his complete ownership of Mulder. Only on one occasion did a cop get called, and other than checking that Mulder was still alive and only screaming in ecstasy, the cop just told them both to get in their car and haul their faggot asses out of town.

Krycek would have killed him for the comment, except for the delicious bliss of seeing Mulder's complete humiliation as he had told the officer "Yes, I do enjoy his arm up my ass, Sir."

And the weirdest thing for Krycek was that the little slut obviously did. Once they were past the initial tears and begging, once Mulder had completely given into him, he always became aroused by their sessions.

Angered by Mulder's obvious enjoyment, Krycek told Mulder that from now on he was forbidden to cum. The penalty for disobedience ranged from flogging to the application of the cattle prod on his balls.

Krycek soon discovered the fun of doing everything he could to MAKE Mulder cum and then in punishing him for it.

Mulder became like a cat on a hot tin roof. Jumping every time Krycek came near, desperately trying to avoid another beating and always inevitably set up to fail.

It took a couple of weeks of this before Mulder simply became impotent. His sexual urge already severely curtailed by his state of near-starvation, terror swept away the remains. Then nothing Krycek tried could make Mulder's cock do anything but shrivel in fear and try to bury itself back in his body.

Furious at Mulder's refusal to keep playing with him, Krycek took him to the seediest Aids-R-Us bar he could find, spread him face down on a pool table and sold him to the whole bar. Krycek was ecstatic with the $280 bucks he earned, but the damage to Mulder's ass was almost insignificant compared with the effect of the gang rape on his mind, and Krycek reluctantly realised he had finally gone too far.

That night was the night that Mulder's mind, already teetering precariously on the edge of madness, truly, absolutely and utterly shattered.

When Mulder finally regained consciousness in the motel room that Krycek had been forced to carry him back to, Krycek assumed that his silent, endless rocking was simply misery. As the days passed, however, and Mulder failed to pull himself together, Krycek decided it was time for another lesson with the cattle prod.

This time, although the prod had the same spectacular physical result, it failed to have the slightest effect on Mulder's mind.

Like a scratched record, with its needle forever stuck on one word, Mulder's vocabulary reduced to the single word "sorry". He wasn't even capable of "yes" or "no" anymore. It didn't matter what Krycek did or said to him, Mulder's only response to him was the same pathetic whimper.

Mulder still was capable of understanding basic orders, but a sentence of more than a half-dozen words made him freeze up like an overheated computer chip until Krycek simplified the command.

It was as though Mulder's ability to think for himself had completely disappeared. Once his now painfully slow brain eventually interpreted an instruction, he was obedient to the point of irritation, doing everything that Krycek told him to do, but doing absolutely nothing without instruction.

The moment Krycek's attention wavered from him, Mulder would simply return to his endless rocking, his eyes so flat and blank that Krycek was finally convinced that not a single trace of Mulder's mind still remained.

Like an automaton, Mulder would no longer even eat a mouthful of food without Krycek specifically instructing him to place it in his mouth and then chew. He seemed totally unaware of his own body, several times having an unpleasant accident because Krycek forgot to tell him to piss or shit.

Krycek actually became bored with punishing Mulder for these mistakes since Mulder no longer seemed capable of understanding why he was being punished. Whether Krycek struck him out of punishment, temper or just pure spite, Mulder didn't even flinch or try to avoid the blows. He just cried and whimpered his endless mantra of "sorry".

"You're no fucking fun anymore," Krycek would scream at Mulder and the other man would just stand there, eyes blank, his body rocking endlessly as he waited placidly for whatever pain would come his way.

Finally, eight weeks after he had fled from the Club, Krycek admitted defeat.

He was completely out of cash. Mulder had ceased being sellable and Krycek had only one credit card left unused. It had a sufficient credit limit to buy him a first-class flight out of the country. He had funds stashed in various safe-deposits abroad, sufficient to lay low until he could make his peace with the Consortium. They would come around, as soon as they realised that Mulder was dead, Krycek decided.

He had finally reached the end of the road with Mulder. There was no further pain, punishment or humiliation that he could devise, to bring Mulder back from wherever he had disappeared to. It was time to end it and get the hell out of the country before Spender finally caught up with him.

So it was for his own satisfaction, rather than a conscious decision to increase Mulder's suffering, that made Krycek remove all but one of the bullets from his gun and then spin the chamber before placing the barrel in Mulder's throat and telling him to suck.

For a moment, Krycek thought he saw a flicker of awareness in Mulder's dead eyes as his lips met the gun barrel, but then he opened his mouth and sucked the cold metal inside, his eyes closing as though he was deep-throating a cock.

Krycek worked the gun back and forth into Mulder's mouth, like a metal dildo, enjoying the way that Mulder's training took over and he sucked and licked at the bitter metal, seemingly oblivious to its true purpose.

"Look at me," he demanded, suddenly needing to see Mulder's eyes, needing to stare into them in the split second before Mulder's face exploded.

Mulder's eyes fluttered open, and again Krycek thought he saw a ghost of awareness in their depths.

"You ready to die, Fox?" he whispered.

Again, a tiny spark flickered over the dull surface of Mulder's eyes, as though at some level, Mulder DID understand and yet his face remained a mask of serenity as he placidly sucked on the gun barrel.

Overwhelmed by the realisation that his fantasy had finally come to pass, that Mulder was so broken that he could only see death as relief, Krycek's finger squeezed the trigger.

Mulder gave an almost imperceptible flinch, his eyes closing in anticipation of the bullet that would rip through his brain. It was only when the trigger fell with a dull click on an empty chamber, that Mulder shuddered and his face, expressionless for days, filled with sorrow.

Krycek couldn't resist stroking Mulder's brow, pushing the over-long hair back out of his eyes so that he could see the misery in Mulder's eyes.

"This what you want, Fox?" he asked.

For a moment the eyes stayed blank, then a single tear formed in one of them and dripped slowly down Mulder's cheek as he nodded.

Krycek's resolve faltered. Faced with Mulder actually pleading to die, he was suddenly uncertain. He started to pull the pistol out of Mulder's mouth, ignoring the frantic way Mulder tried to bite down on the gun barrel to stop him removing it.

So it was only the shock of hearing the loud crash of the motel door breaking open, that caused his finger to close again on the trigger and fire.

~~~

Part Sixteen

In the sudden silence that followed the breaking of the door, the sound of the trigger falling on another empty chamber was clearly audible. As was the rasping grind of the gun barrel scraping out of Mulder's teeth, as Krycek leapt to his feet to face the intruder.

His prosthetic fingers grappled desperately with the Smith and Wesson still clutched in his right hand, attempting to engage the sole bullet into the firing chamber, even as an enraged body charged from the doorway towards him like a maddened bull.

Before he could recover from his shock, a round-house kick connected shatteringly with his right hand, causing the gun to spin out of his grasp and fly across the room. A fist impacted into his midriff and he doubled up in agony, gasping for breath, as the air expelled violently from his lungs, and then a sharp upper cut connected with his chin as he folded over.

The fist snapped Krycek's head backwards, and he staggered off balance for a moment, teetering precariously, before his stumbling feet tripped over Mulder's kneeling body, and he sprawled backwards onto the bed, desperately gasping for breath.

So arrogantly certain of his own physical prowess, Krycek had been completely unprepared for the sudden and unexpected efficiency of the other man's assault. His eyes glared malevolently at his attacker but the puzzlement in his voice, when he finally managed to speak, was genuine.

"You!" he hissed. "What the fuck are YOU doing here?"

Although the door bursting open had caught him completely by surprise, Krycek had naturally assumed that the invader was Spender or one of his henchmen.

Realising who it actually was, had so surprised him that he had been caught off-guard by the fury of the assault.

He hadn't even imagined that the other man poised a physical threat to him at all. He certainly hadn't anticipated that a man twice his age could produce the efficient violence required to knock a trained assassin off his feet. Shit, he hadn't even managed to land a blow against the older man.

His attacker ignored him, instead turning his attention to Mulder, who was still trembling on the floor, his hazel eyes flickering rapidly from Krycek to himself, as though he were uncertain where the greatest danger lay.

Skinner was barely able to recognise Mulder. He looked like a refugee from a famine-torn war-zone, his protruding bones clothed only in bruises and his eyes glazed with the blank haunted stare of a war orphan. Faced with Mulder's flat, unresponsive countenance, he began to doubt whether Mulder even recognised him.

Yet, more than Mulder's dazed eyes and battered, emaciated frame, what truly offended Skinner was Mulder's cock. He had spent enough weeks staring at 'that' photo not to be surprised by the tattoo, but it still brought a haze of red anger into his eyes to see it literally 'in the flesh'.

"Get up, get dressed and get in the car," Skinner barked, angrily throwing his car keys at Mulder's fee

"NOW!" he shouted, when Mulder failed to react to his command. He knew that Krycek was quickly recovering from the initial assault and was likely to erupt off the bed at any moment. The fact that he had disturbed Krycek in the process of blowing Mulder's head off, proved that the assassin saw Mulder as dispensable and Skinner didn't want to be handicapped himself, by his awareness of Mulder's vulnerable presence

For a moment, Mulder continued to look at him blankly, then to Skinner's relief, a flash of awareness finally sparked in the dull hazel eyes. As though a switch had finally connected in his brain, Mulder clutched at the keys and then scrambled backwards towards the carrier bag that contained his clothes.

"How the fuck did YOU find me?" Krycek demanded, keeping a wary eye on Skinner's fists as he rose slowly to a sitting position. He began to judge the distance between himself and the gun, calculating desperately whether he could reach it before Skinner pounced again.

"A mutual acquaintance told me," Skinner drawled coldly. "Don't even THINK about it," he added, as he saw Krycek's eyes flickering towards the discarded pistol.

Krycek gave a casual shrug, attempting to hide the panic that Skinner's words inspired. There was only one person that Skinner could be referring to and, despite his newfound wariness of Skinner, the AD was the last of Krycek's problems if Spender was lurking nearby.

He had no idea what game Spender was playing by sending Skinner ahead of his goons. All he knew was that he needed to get the fuck out of here before Spender inevitably arrived.

"You want him?" Krycek asked, nodding with studied nonchalance towards Mulder. "Then you can have him. I don't want him. I never wanted to do this. I was just following orders."

His lie didn't have the desired effect, however. Skinner actually laughed at his offer, his eyes narrowing to near black slits that regarded him with disgust.

"You steal MY property and then have the audacity to think you can give it back in this state and just walk away?" Skinner demanded, his lips curling in a bizarre smile that contained no hint of humor.

Krycek swallowed nervously. He had never realised that Skinner was so damned BIG before. He contemplated his chances of getting past the older man if he just surged to his feet and ran for the open doorway. His jaw and ribs were already aching so badly that he doubted his ability to move fast enough, unless Skinner was distracted.

"It doesn't look like Fox is particularly happy to see you," he taunted, nodding towards the corner where Mulder had retreated to.

As he had hoped, his use of Mulder's first name made Skinner's face flush with outrage, and the brown eyes immediately followed his own gaze.

Driven initially by the impetus of Skinner's rage, Mulder had only managed to drag his t-shirt over his chest before seemingly forgetting what he was supposed to be doing. Jeans clutched in one hand, car keys in the other, he had frozen in confusion and had simply resumed his normal mindless rocking.

While Krycek was well aware of the reasons for Mulder's behaviour, Skinner saw only that Mulder had failed to obey him.

"I told you to get dressed and get in the fucking car!" he roared, taking a threatening step towards the corner.

Krycek took advantage of the distraction, surging to his feet and managing to take two steps towards the doorway, before Skinner kicked backwards, his boot connecting with deadly accuracy against Krycek's left kneecap. The cartilage exploded, and Krycek collapsed to the floor, howling in agony.

It was Krycek's scream of pain that finally stunned Mulder back to enough awareness to scramble to his feet and scurry out of the smashed door.

In the relative safety of the motel car park, Mulder dragged his jeans on. Flinching from the raised voices and loud crashing sounds that continued to emerge from the gaping doorway of the motel room, he stumbled to Krycek's latest stolen car and forced the keys into the trunk lock.

He nearly dropped the keys in panic when they refused to turn in the lock. To his left, yellow lights began to flash and he flinched and cowered in confusion, his fingers becoming slick with sweat as he struggled with the keys. Sobbing in terror, one eye on the motel room and the other on the unyielding door, it took him several endless minutes to remember that it hadn't been Krycek who had given him the keys.

It had been - had been -, his mind skittered in fresh panic as the name of the other man continued to elude him. The OTHER Master, he finally settled on, his heart beat slowing its frantic pounding as a little memory resurfaced.

It was his other Master, the one who hadn't wanted him any more, just as Krycek didn't want him any more.

He hadn't been able to follow their conversation. The words had been too fast and the anger in their voices had been so frightening, that he had just tried to pretend that he couldn't hear them at all. He had learnt that if people were angry then it was always his fault and that punishment would follow swiftly on the heels of their raised voices.

Yet the one sentence that he had heard, had understood, was his Master saying, "I don't want him."

As soon as he had heard those words, he had frozen in horror. He had even forgotten why he was holding the jeans in his hands. Although the memories were too nebulous, the images too vague and dreamlike for comprehension, still the deja vu struck him like a physical blow. His empty stomach churned sickeningly as dread filled him, although he couldn't truly grasp the reason for his own fear.

Like an echo, the words tumbled through the foggy clouds that filled his head. He heard his Master's voice saying "I don't want him," then the other voice overlaid it saying "I don't want you," and slowly he identified the other voice. The voice of the other man, his other Master. The other Master who was gone, but now was here.

Like a long disused engine, his brain coughed and spluttered reluctantly, refusing to fire, as he tried to make sense of the inexplicable. His Master didn't want him. His other Master didn't want him either. But, the other Master was here. Did this mean his other Master wanted him back?

He jumped as he finally made the connection, yet as soon as he grasped the thought it was gone, the image breaking into ragged splinters and then wafting away like thin smoke. Sobbing, as the clouds of confusion began to choke him once more, he looked frantically around the car park.

Desperately clutching the key fob, he dredged his memory for what his other Master's car looked like, but the lights kept distracting him. He felt that their constant yellow flashing was a message, yet the more he tried to understand what the lights were trying to tell him, the more bewildered and frightened he became.

He scurried back to Krycek's car and banged frantically on the trunk, desperate for its dark sanctuary, only to finally collapse on the floor, his forehead resting on the rear bumper. He was sobbing so loudly that he failed to notice that the sounds from the motel room had muted, and a large shadow was emerging from the splintered doorway.

~~~

Skinner paused in the doorway long enough to wipe his bloody knuckles on a handkerchief and strode quickly to his car. Despite the noise, none of the lights had come on in the neighboring chalets and he could hear no wail of approaching sirens in the distance.

Even so, there was still the chance that some residents had called the police anonymously, and he really didn't want to spend the rest of the night trying to explain to some local cop why the FBI's assistant director had just beaten a one-armed man nearly to death in a seedy motel room.

Besides, he was still wary of the Consortium. Although the tip-off he had received from them had paid off in spades, he was still half-expecting Spender to suddenly appear out of the shadows and let him know the true reason he had told Skinner where Krycek and Mulder could be found.

It just didn't make sense, dammit. Why take Mulder off him, refuse to answer his increasingly desperate demands to know where Mulder was, and then simply give him back now?

He couldn't even begin to understand how the Consortium had benefited by forcing him to give Mulder up in the first place. Why had Spender spouted all that self-righteous crap in his office, about Mulder being necessary for the X-files, if all he had really wanted to do was hand Fox over to an animal like Krycek?

Some part of him was amazed that his car was still there. Between Krycek trying to blow his head off, and his own furious yelling, he wouldn't have been surprised if Mulder had simply bolted in terror.

God, he couldn't believe how pissed off he'd been to see Mulder with Krycek. He had almost been glad to see the blood, burns and bruises that covered Mulder's skinny body. After the weeks he had spent gazing at the photographic evidence that Mulder had allowed himself to be used as a cheap slut, discovering for certain that Krycek had been forcing Mulder made the whole thing that bit easier for him to bear.

It had also increased his pleasure in beating the shit out of Krycek for having dared to touch Mulder. Just the thought of Krycek's hands on Mulder, let alone the idea that his cock had been in Mulder's ass, incensed him so much that he was almost tempted to turn back to the Motel room and finish the bastard off properly.

For a moment, his insane feeling of jealousy worried him, but then he shook himself. It didn't mean anything. This wasn't about Mulder. This was about HIM. Krycek had stolen and used HIS property and that was simply unacceptable.

Mulder was his property, plain and simple. Just because he had been forced to throw Mulder out of his apartment, it didn't mean that Mulder hadn't belonged to him anymore. Even Spender had obviously acknowledged his ownership now, otherwise he wouldn't have helped him to get him back, would he?

Feeling calmer, he opened his car door and started to climb in. It was only then that he realised that Mulder wasn't in the passenger seat. Rage warred with panic as he jumped back out of the car, his eyes frantically searching the dark car park.

Had Mulder run away? Or had Spender been waiting after all? Maybe Spender had just used him to deal with Krycek and had taken the opportunity to snatch Mulder for himself. The car door had been unlocked, so Mulder must have at least intended to get in the car, he decided, otherwise why would he have operated the electronic controls on the key fob? So had he been kidnapped or had he just started to climb in and then changed his mind?

Skinner turned back to his car, hoping he still had a spare set of keys in the glove box. Mulder hadn't been wearing shoes, so if he had run by himself he couldn't have gone far, and if, as he suspected, Mulder had been bundled into a car by Spender, then the sooner he started to follow, the sooner he would catch up. He wrenched open the door and started to climb in. The courtesy light winked on, casting a low beam out of the open door, and it occurred to Skinner that Mulder might have dropped the keys outside the door.

His eyes tracked across the tarmac, looking for a tell-tale glint of metal, and hesitated on a strangely shaped lump behind the rear bumper of a nearby car. As understanding struck him, Skinner gave a deep bellow of rage and leapt out of the car for a second time, practically running to where Mulder was huddled on the floor.

"What the FUCK is wrong with you?" he screamed, grabbing Mulder by the back of the neck and shaking him violently. The fact that he had so nearly simply driven off, leaving Mulder behind, stoked his earlier fury back to fever pitch.

Didn't the stupid bastard WANT to be rescued?

He snatched the car keys out of Mulder's fingers and frog-marched him to the passenger seat of his own car.

"Get in," he growled, opening the door and giving Mulder a violent shove in the back to force him inside. He stalked back to the driver's side, opened the car door, started to climb in, and gagged. The stench pouring off Mulder was enough to make his stomach heave. He hadn't noticed it in the open air, but in the confines of the car it was unavoidable.

"Shit, Fox, you smell like a wino!" he spat viciously, and saw the other man flinch.

The odor of stale sweat and piss wafted off Mulder's clothes as he trembled under Skinner's glare.

"Why the hell didn't you put clean clothes on?" Skinner demanded.

It took a moment for Mulder digest the question, but since he had put on the only clothes he had, he was unable to understand what Skinner meant, let alone find an answer. Mulder dropped his head almost to his lap in bewildered contrition before finally whispering a desperate "Sorry."

"Get out of my car," Skinner barked.

Mulder quivered and his eyes filled with tears as he realised that he had somehow been bad again. He jumped out of the car door, stumbled a little as his feet hit the floor and then stood there trembling by the side of the car, mutely waiting for whatever punishment he had earned.

"Close the door," Skinner snapped angrily, as the cold night air filled the car, thankfully clearing the odor but nearly freezing his balls off in the process.

Mulder pushed the door shut and then hugged himself miserably, waiting for Skinner to either chain him to the tow hoop or maybe even just drive off and abandon him. To his considerable relief, and surprise, Skinner instead popped the trunk open and then slid the passenger window down a crack to speak.

"Strip, and I mean *everything*. There are some plastic bags in the trunk. Then wrap yourself in this," and he handed a traveling blanket out of the window.

Mulder scuttled off and Skinner drummed his fingers impatiently against the steering wheel. He was completely dumbfounded. He didn't want to send Mulder back into the motel room for a change of clothes, hell, he didn't want to look at what now remained of Krycek himself. Yet there was no way he was sharing a car with someone who smelt like a flop-house.

After all the fuss Mulder had given him over forcing him to wear stuff from K-mart, how the hell had he sunk low enough to voluntarily put on clothes so filthy? He hadn't smelt anything so bad since the time he had deliberately left Mulder lying in his own shit and piss for three days in the safe house.

Given the way in which the experience had broken Mulder, he couldn't imagine the man ever voluntarily smelling like that again. He began to wonder exactly what that bastard Krycek had done to Mulder to make him finally lose all his pride.

Finally, his patience snapped. Surely, it didn't take half an hour to strip. Didn't the idiot realise that the cops could be on the way? He cranked the window down.

"Fox, get your fucking ass in the car, now!" he growled into the chilly night air.

Huddled under the blanket to try and combat the freezing night air, Mulder quivered and trembled as Skinner's furious words reached him. He was in the car, wasn't he? Wasn't he? Maybe he wasn't. Suddenly uncertain, he peeled the rough wool off his face to that he could check that he really WAS in the trunk. He sobbed in relief and waited for the familiar clunk of the trunk lid closing.

Instead a furious hand gripped the back of his neck through the blanket and his knees banged painfully against the side of the car as he was dragged out. Yelping with pain and fear, Mulder nearly fell, his already numb feet were bitten by the savage chill of the tarmac, as Skinner dragged him to the passenger door for the second time and shoved him inside.

"What the fuck did you think you were doing?" Skinner growled as he climbed in, engaged the throttle and started to ease the car out of the parking lot. Mulder just gave him a frightened look and huddled in the blanket, shivering with cold.

"Put your seatbelt on," Skinner hissed and fiddled with the heater, hoping that the engine would warm up before Mulder developed hypothermia. "I told you to put your clothes in the trunk, you idiot, not yourself. Do you have ANY idea how fucking cold a car trunk is?" he grumbled as he drove.

Mulder just sat and listened in growing confusion. He had made his Master angry AGAIN and he just didn't understand what he kept doing wrong.

He didn't know what had happened while he was in the car park. All he could assume was that this Master had finally agreed to take him back. Maybe had bought him back from Krycek expecting that he was 'properly' trained.

Mulder couldn't remember WHY this Master hadn't wanted him anymore, but he was sure it had to be because he was a bad slave. He didn't know why he had been a bad slave. Although he couldn't actually remember more than odd snatches of life with this Master and those memories were full of fear, still his fear had somehow been 'different' then. Not so much fear OF his Master, but rather fear of displeasing him, and although Mulder couldn't truly grasp the difference with his mind, he reacted instinctively to the feeling that somehow he was safer with this Master.

Yet, already he was fucking it up. This Master was probably already regretting his purchase. Mulder shivered and curled up tighter in the blanket, trying to steal some little comfort from its rough fabric, and constantly flicking his eyes sideways for reassurance that he wasn't inadvertently causing any further offence.

Skinner was aware of Mulder's regard as he drove. The hazel eyes, now far too big for the thin exhausted face, drilled holes in his head as he stared out of the windscreen, but always ducked nervously away whenever he turned to look.

"It's a long drive, " he finally said in a gruff voice. "Climb over to the back seat and try to get some sleep."

Mulder was so grateful for this unexpected kindness, that he actually managed to break his litany of "sorry" and whisper "Yes, Master," instead, as he began to climb between the seats.

Skinner couldn't resist darting a hand up to grab Mulder's swinging cock as it passed him. He gave it a gentle, affectionate squeeze, but instead of Mulder's usual groan of anticipation and immediate engorgement, he felt the cock almost shrivel in his hand and Mulder's balls shrank to huddle behind the heavy ring, as though they were trying to burrow back in his body.

Anger struck Skinner like a physical blow. Mulder hadn't resisted his touch since the first days. He had just put his job on the line at no more than a cryptic note from Spender, had driven non-stop across two States, had practically battered Krycek to death and now Mulder was acting as though his touch was leprous.

He slammed on the brakes and pulled the car to a screaming halt by the side of the road, deciding to get to the bottom of Mulder's weird and ungrateful behaviour, right here and now. His sudden stop hurled Mulder back onto the dashboard and Skinner could immediately see a huge bruise already forming where his hand had been clenching the other man's groin. Tears of pain had flooded Mulder's eyes and were silently trickling down his face.

His inadvertent abuse of Mulder's already battered body was enough to quench most of Skinner's feelings of rejection, but still he needed to know why Mulder had responded so badly to his touch

He reached forwards and cupped Mulder's balls in his hand. The younger man's whole body spasmed with obvious fright, but he made no attempt to avoid or resist Skinner's inspection. Again, Skinner saw Mulder's cock go limp in response to his touch.

"Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry..." Mulder mumbled helplessly, knowing he had somehow displeased his Master again but unable to comprehend why.

Skinner had to remind himself that arousal was not a voluntary thing. It wasn't exactly Mulder's fault that he wasn't responding. Perhaps it didn't mean Mulder was rejecting him. To test the theory he began to unzip his own pants. A spark of relief filled Mulder's eyes and before Skinner had even finished releasing his cock, Mulder scrambled off the dashboard and dove his face into his lap, sucking and licking with the loud moans of pleasure that he had learned were expected of him.

If the sounds were a little forced, Skinner failed to notice as his long-neglected groin responded greedily to Mulder's mouth. He grabbed Mulder's hair and pushed him down, feeling his entire length slide easily into Mulder's throat. At least the boy had remembered how he liked it, he thought to himself as Mulder deep-throated him, wrenching an orgasm out of his body in a matter of minutes.

Yet, when Mulder pulled back, instead of his usual happy grin, there was just that same look of fear in his eyes as though he were still expecting a blow.

He reached out to stroke Mulder's face and saw the other man flinch minutely and close his eyes. Angrily, Skinner realised that Krycek could never have appreciated Mulder's talented mouth, since Mulder was obviously conditioned to always expect a blow now rather than a caress.

He was filled with new rage at Krycek. Damn, the man had no appreciation. Anyone should be satisfied by Mulder's welcoming throat, in Skinner's opinion, but obviously not that bastard.

Then again, he had hardly always been appreciative of Mulder himself, had he? It hadn't been until Mulder had disappeared that he had finally admitted to himself how much he had grown to want Mulder. Hell, maybe even need him.

"Why the fuck did you let Krycek have you?" he demanded furiously, as a black wave of jealousy crashed over him once more.

Mulder shivered and blinked uncertainly, his fingers playing nervously with the collar that now dangled loosely around his emaciated neck. He'd been sold, hadn't he? Hadn't he? Or had he run away? He suddenly couldn't remember for sure. He could sense his Master's anger so he knew he had done something wrong, but he just couldn't be sure what he should apologise for.

Opting for safety, he just began his mantra again, "sorry, sorry, sorry," until Skinner's sigh of confused exasperation terrified him into silence instead.

Staring at Mulder's completely blank expression, Skinner had a sudden, sinking feeling that Mulder didn't even know who he was anymore.

"Who am I?" he demanded.

Mulder gulped nervously, realised that "sorry" wouldn't cut it as an answer, so tried a mumbled "Master?" He flinched, just in case it was the wrong reply.

"What's my NAME?" Skinner clarified.

Mulder just chewed his lips nervously, his eyes darting in obvious panic. Horrified by the genuine puzzlement on Mulder's face, Skinner tried a different question.

"Who are YOU?" he asked.

After a long silence, Mulder whispered, "I am a worthless slut," in a voice so completely devoid of emotion or inflection, that Skinner doubted Mulder even understood what he was saying. It was obviously a sentence that had been drilled into him by rote.

"Your NAME is FOX," Skinner snarled, too incensed by Mulder's reply to control the anger in his voice.

"S-s-sorry M-m-master," Mulder whimpered, suddenly wondering whether Skinner was too disgusted with him now to take him back. Would he realise what a poor bargain he had made for him? Mulder had no idea how much Skinner had paid for him, but whatever it was obviously too much, judging by the look of distaste on Skinner's face.

"Don't call me that!" Skinner growled. "My name is Skinner. YOU call me SIR!"

Mulder's lower lip trembled in obvious confusion, and his eyes began to brim with tears again.

"Just get in the back, Fox," Skinner mumbled, unable to deal with this right now. His head was spinning as he tried to understand what the hell Krycek had thought he had been doing, screwing Mulder's mind up so badly.

'Maybe it was just a power thing. Maybe he was just playing the same game that you did. Maybe he's more like you than you thought,' hissed an insidious voice inside his own head.

~~~

They stopped at a gas station just after dawn. Skinner was exhausted. He had pulled the car into a lay-by to get a couple of hours of sleep, but every time that he nearly dropped off, he had been dragged awake again by the sound of Mulder whimpering in his sleep. So, he had given up and continued driving. Mulder had woken about an hour earlier and had scrambled back into the passenger seat at Skinner's invitation, looking so little better for his rest that Skinner selfishly wondered whether it had been worth his own exhaustion just to let Mulder sleep.

The rest of the town was still closed, but the garage had a small shop and Skinner managed to buy an XXL t-shirt for Mulder, sandwiches and a couple of large bottles of coke. He threw everything in Mulder's lap and drove quickly out of town.

He hoped that by the time they reached the next settlement, there would be some shops open. He didn't like the idea of driving in broad daylight with a half-naked man in the car.

"Well, put it on, or do you prefer being naked in public now?" he snapped, as he realised that Mulder was still just holding the unopened package.

Mulder looked at him blankly.

"Put the fucking t-shirt on," Skinner snarled.

Mulder looked helplessly at the brown paper sack on his lap. He knew this game. This was the 'whatever you do you are going to get a beating' game.

He knew the t-shirt was in the bag and Skinner had told him to put it on. However, Skinner hadn't told him to open the bag. If he opened the bag without permission, he would be beaten. If he didn't put the T-shirt on, he would be beaten. The anxiety made the pressure in his bladder increase unbearably.

He had needed to take a piss since he had woken up. He had hoped that Skinner would let him relieve himself at the gas station but he hadn't. He knew he was being punished again, he just couldn't understand what he had done *this* time.

He cringed in his seat, covertly pushing the bag against his groin in an effort to keep the pressure in.

Skinner finally lost his temper and snatched the bag off Mulder's lap with one hand, while hanging onto the steering wheel with the other. He would get the damned t-shirt out himself, he decided.

As soon as the bag was ripped from his groin, Mulder lost control. The resultant hissing splash registered in Skinner's ears a couple of seconds before the smell hit him. He looked in complete disbelief at the streaming yellow arc that shot out of Mulder's cock and into the foot well of the car.

"You fucking DIRTY bastard," he screamed, hauling the car to an abrupt halt. He snapped the catch of Mulder's seatbelt, leant over to open the door and shoved the other man violently out onto the hard shoulder.

Skinner let himself out of his own door and stormed around the front of the car to kick the shit out of the little punk. It was only as he reached Mulder, and the younger man cringed in obviously bewildered terror, that Skinner found his anger replaced by complete confusion.

"Why?" he yelled, at the cowering man.

"S-s-s-sorry," Mulder stammered.

"Sorry? You're fucking sorry? Why the hell didn't you say something?" Skinner demanded.

Mulder whimpered and cringed, his mouth trembling as he just continued to gasp "Sorry, sorry, sorry" .

Skinner stiffened with outrage. The little bastard had just pissed in his car and then thought saying sorry was good enough? Then, with a sinking feeling, he realised that it was the only word that Mulder seemed capable of saying. The only time Mulder had dared to say a different word, "Master", he had almost bitten Mulder's head off for saying it.

But if Mulder had completely lost the ability to communicate, how the hell had Krycek dealt with him? Mulder would have had quite a few accidents, he imagined, if he had always been completely dependant on Krycek noticing that he needed to relieve himself. Then again, Mulder's clothes 'had' smelt as though he had pissed in them several times.

He looked at Mulder's terrified, uncomprehending eyes and his heart lurched surprisingly. What terror would it take to make a man even prefer to piss himself than dare open his mouth?

In a gruff, but quite gentle voice, he asked, "do you need to - um - take a dump too?"

Mulder's whole body seemed to sag with relief at the question and he nodded frantically, with a look of such obvious gratitude in his frightened eyes, that Skinner found his own bowels aching in sympathy. The road was still completely quiet, so he gestured to the ditch that ran along its side.

"Hurry up then," he mumbled and turned away to allow Mulder some privacy.

When several minutes passed and Mulder still hadn't returned, Skinner began to feel concerned. He returned to peer over the bank. Mulder was in a squatting position, his face red with effort as he heaved and groaned with no apparent effect.

Skinner scrambled down the bank until he could see Mulder's agonised, tear-stained face.

"What's wrong Fox?" he asked, deliberately keeping his tone gentle despite his growing alarm.

Mulder just gave Skinner a look of bewildered misery as his body spasmed with agony.

"How long since you last took a shit, Fox?" Skinner demanded.

Mulder's only reply was a choked scream, as a fresh wave of pain contorted his face.

Shit, Mulder was dangerously constipated, Skinner realised. Probably another way Krycek got his sick jollies, he decided, although it seemed an anomalous thing for Krycek to have done if he was using Mulder as a slut.

Skinner watched with growing panic. He had no idea how far they were from the next town, and besides, he didn't dare take Mulder to a doctor. One look at Mulder's injuries and the hospital would be flooded with cops.

He'd just have to drive Mulder to a motel and give him an enema himself, he decided. He took Mulder by the elbow and tried to pull him up out of the ditch, but Mulder just began to scream in earnest, his body too wracked by spasms to move. Skinner was just about to swing him up in his arms and carry him, when an alternative idea struck him.

He raced back to the car and searched the boot. There was an emergency petrol can in there, never used, so it could function as a douche. The only liquid he had in the car was the coke, but he decided the coke would work as well as water, if not better. He poured both bottles into the petrol can, fixed the rubber spout on firmly and then searching his gym kit bag found some tiger balm. He knew it would sting like a bugger, but still, it was lubrication and the fiery burn of the lineament might even help.

He swathed the balm over the nozzle, feeling the heat on his palms and although he flinched at the idea of it inside anyone's ass, he returned purposefully to the ditch.

If anything, Mulder was writhing in more agony, as though in trying to defecate he had started a process that he was now completely unable to either stop or finish.

"Get on your hands and knees, " Skinner instructed. "Now, lower your head to the ground and straighten your legs until you are on the balls of your feet."

It was a testimony to Mulder's obedience that he managed to make his contorting body take the position. He flinched as Skinner inserted the nozzle and then began to howl as the rubber was pushed down his insides, and the lineament began to burn him up from the inside.

Then Skinner inverted the can and poured the whole 3 liters of coke into Mulder's ass. He withdrew the nozzle and quickly rammed a wadded rag into Mulder's opening to form a bung.

"Okay, kneel again, moving slowly," Skinner instructed and walked around until he could see Mulder's face. He used his handkerchief to wipe the tears and snot from the younger man's face.

"I know it hurts like a bastard, Fox, but in a few minutes you are going to feel so much better that it will be worth it. Trust me."

Mulder just whimpered, clutching his stomach as the churning coke ravaged his insides.

"Good boy, good Fox," Skinner crooned. He had seen Mulder in agony so many times but that had been different. He had caused it, so he had always felt in control. Yet, seeing Mulder suffer because of someone else's actions made him sick and ashamed that he had ever put a look like this on the younger man's face himself.

Suddenly Mulder's eyes went huge, and his face went white. Skinner took several hasty steps back as Mulder began to jerk and spasm.

"Squat again, Fox, and pull out the bung," he instructed, again realising that despite his agony, Mulder was still waiting for orders.

Mulder took position, pulled at the cloth and then screamed in a mix of agony and relief as his whole insides tried to escape through his ass. By the time he had finished and crawled forward out of the mess, his whole body was white and shivering, but the spasms had gone.

Skinner handed him the traveling blanket.

"Clean yourself up with this and then just dump it and come back to the car," he said gruffly, more relieved than he had thought possible that his emergency enema had worked.

Ten minutes later he had to climb back in the ditch and fetch Mulder out himself. Mulder HAD cleaned himself up, at least, but then he had merely stood in the ditch, rocking in misery, his face blank. Yet his eyes had definitely lit up when Skinner had returned for him.

Skinner was uncomfortably reminded of the evening before in the motel room, when Mulder had started to get dressed but then had zoned out. It was as though Mulder could barely hold a thought in his head at all, let alone remember a second instruction.

At least, by the time Mulder had followed him meekly to the car, his emaciated, bruised body had regained a little colour and he gratefully accepted the new t-shirt. It hung loosely on his shoulders and chest and reached almost to mid-thigh. It wasn't the most respectable outfit, Skinner acknowledged, but at least if Mulder was sitting in a car, people would simply assume he had shorts on too.

Skinner removed the sodden carpet from the passenger foot well, used Mulder's old clothes to wipe the door and then threw them in the ditch with the blanket. It wasn't an environmentally friendly action, but it was the least of his crimes, he decided.

"Get in the car, Fox," he said tiredly as he returned to find that Mulder was hopping from foot to frozen foot on the icy tarmac but had failed to get into the warmth.

He was driving down the road before he saw Mulder's eyes on him.

"Are you hungry?" he asked.

Mulder's eyes widened and he nodded hopefully.

"Me too," Skinner replied. "Get the sandwiches out of the bag. Unwrap mine for me."

Mulder obediently rummaged in the bag, retrieved the sandwiches and unwrapped one. Skinner reached out his hand gratefully and munched as he drove. He had finished, and was regretting having nothing left to drink, when he realised that Mulder was still looking wistfully at the sandwich on his lap.

"I thought you were hungry," he snapped, concern making his voice harsher than he intended.

Mulder flinched in terror and tears brimmed in his eyes. His master had seemed so kind earlier, yet now he was just playing with him again.

"Why the hell haven't you eaten your sandwich," Skinner demanded.

"Sorry," Mulder whispered, choking back a sob.

Skinner banged an outraged fist on the steering wheel.

"If you say 'sorry' one more time -" he began to shout, then abruptly shut up as he realised he was basically telling Mulder he couldn't talk at all.

Mulder quivered and curled into a ball on his chair, the sandwich still clutched desperately in his fingers, and he began to cry great sobs of terror.

Skinner slammed the brakes on again, almost making a truck following behind them go off the road. It flew past with an angry screech of the horn.

"Yeah, and the same to you, fucker!" Skinner snarled, glad to have an outlet for his tension. Then he turned to Mulder.

"I'm sorry, Fox," he said, keeping his voice as even as possible. It was proving ludicrous to try and deal with Mulder's fear by terrorizing him further. He was just going to have to try to control his irritation and be more understanding. "I didn't mean to frighten you. Stop crying and tell me what the problem is."

Mulder took a hitching breath, turned pleading, red-rimmed eyes to his master, then hesitantly reached out his hand and took hold of Skinner's wrist. Skinner narrowed his eyes but relaxed his arm, allowing Mulder to pull it towards him.

Keeping his wary eyes on Skinner's face, Mulder began to cover Skinner's hand with tiny kisses, desperately trying to convey his frantic desire to please.

Skinner closed his eyes. How many times had he dreamed of seeing the arrogant Fox Mulder completely broken? This was what he had always wanted, wasn't it? So why did it hurt so much? Why did it make him sick to his stomach to see Mulder's body and know that nothing at all remained of his once fine brain except this pathetic, cowering wreck of a man?

"It's okay, Fox. I'm not angry with you," he finally promised, not knowing what else to say.

It seemed enough for Mulder though. He jumped up and slathered kisses all over Skinner's face like an excited puppy. Again, Skinner surprised himself by how hollow he felt. Where was the victory? The pleasure? He had an insane urge to cry himself.

"Eat your sandwich, Fox," he muttered gruffly.

Mulder detached himself and reached eagerly for the now battered food. Keeping a watchful eye on Skinner, he took a small bite and chewed it ravenously. Then he stopped and looked at Skinner again, pleadingly.

"Go on," Skinner said and Mulder ripped another bite. His eyes closed in rapture as he tasted and swallowed. Then he stopped again.

Skinner sighed; this was getting old, fast. He couldn't believe that Mulder needed him to approve every damn bite.

"Just eat the whole damn thing," he snapped, already forgetting his resolution to be more gentle.

Mulder's face fell slightly and then he nodded with sad obedience, opened his mouth as far as possible and tried to cram the whole remaining sandwich in.

"STOP!" Skinner cried out and Mulder froze in confusion, the sandwich now wedged halfway in his mouth.

"Okay, okay, take it out," Skinner said in defeat. "One bite at a time then," and he slowly supervised the meal, allowing Mulder to savor each taste before gesturing him to bite again.

All the time, Mulder's hazel eyes were watching him warily, his body tense as though constantly anticipating a blow.

But, when he had finally finished, he couldn't help a sad despairing glance at his empty hands and his stomach rumbled impatiently. The taste of food had only woken his hunger not sated it.

"There's no more," Skinner found himself apologizing. "We will stop in the next town for some lunch."

We'll have to eat it in the car though, he realised, not willing to try this performance in a public restaurant. His mind shuddered from the idea of anyone witnessing Mulder like this, and viewing Mulder from that perspective, he began to seriously wonder whether he still wanted Mulder at all.

What the hell was he going to do now? How could he cope with a man who couldn't even communicate with him? It was as bad as sharing his car with a damn dog. This wasn't what he wanted. This had NEVER been what he wanted.

Sure he had wanted to chain that brilliant mind and wild spirit and tame it to his own desires, but he had never wanted to DESTROY Mulder in the process. He had wanted to leash the fire, not quench it. If nothing of Mulder remained in that shattered body, if Mulder wasn't even aware of who he was anymore, then what satisfaction could be gained from possessing him?

If Mulder was truly insane, if his mind had splintered so completely that he could never claw his way back to reality, then was there any point in taking him home with him?

For a moment, Skinner seriously considered simply stopping the car and leaving Mulder on the hard shoulder. Someone would eventually come along and take Mulder to a hospital, where he evidently belonged.

It would be the best thing for both of them. Mulder would be looked after in an asylum. They would have the patience there to deal with his inability to eat or even piss without help. No one would ever know about his own involvement in Mulder's destruction and at least when they ran his fingerprints through the computer, the mystery of Mulder's disappearance would finally be officially closed.

But what if Mulder's madness was only temporary? What if some clever psychiatrist managed to break through to him? Mulder would be another Rhodes. A silent, time-bomb inexorably ticking towards Skinner's own destruction. Five, ten, hell, maybe even twenty years down the line, would Mulder come back to haunt him? Would the truth finally emerge and Skinner's life again come crashing around his head like a pack of cards?

"Kill him," a voice whispered insidiously at the back of his mind. "It wouldn't be murder, it would be a kindness to put him out of his misery. Just stop the car, put a bullet through his head and then forget about him."

For a moment he was seriously tempted. Hell, he even had Krycek's pistol hadn't he? He had pocketed it before he left the Motel room. No one would ever know that Walter Sergei Skinner had ever been on this deserted highway with Mulder and in view of Mulder's injuries, people would automatically assume that Krycek was the murderer.

Besides, he had inadvertently interrupted Krycek in the actual process of blowing Mulder's head off anyway, hadn't he? So all he would be doing would be finishing the job that Krycek had started. Krycek's decision to kill Mulder finally made sense to him.

Yet the idea that he was reacting to Mulder's madness with the same solution as that bastard, suddenly horrified him. He WASN'T Krycek and he was damned if he was going to act like him.

As the vision of Krycek's gun in Mulder's mouth resurfaced in his mind, his stomach churned and the memory of his own horror at the sight caused him to grasp desperately at a different reason for Mulder's behaviour.

It's not madness, it's shock, he told himself. Hell, Krycek was just about to blow his head off, wasn't he? Once Mulder got home to familiar surroundings, put some weight on and got over the experience, he'd be fine again.

Whatever had happened couldn't be THAT bad. Sure, Krycek had hurt Mulder, but then again, Mulder liked pain, didn't he?

Yeah. Mulder would snap out of it when they got home, he convinced himself.

~~~

Part Seventeen

They returned to Washington in the early hours of the third day. Skinner was worn out, his head aching from the stress of his long drive, but not too tired to check the lobby exhaustively for any signs of surveillance before leading the still barely-clad Mulder towards his apartment.

He couldn't afford anyone to become aware of Mulder's return until the younger man could at least act normally.

The two day journey had been a nightmare for Skinner. It hadn't only been Mulder's helplessness that had disturbed him, although having to supervise every mouthful of food and water, let alone having to remember to tell Mulder to take a piss, had drained the energy out of him.

The worst part, by far, had been Mulder's ceaseless attempts to physically please him and his own resultant confusion.

It simply hadn't occurred to him, in the first rush of relief at retrieving Mulder, that Krycek might have shared Mulder's ass with strangers. As soon as it did, and he had finally managed to get Mulder to confirm the fact with a fearful litany of "sorrys," Skinner had gone cold with fear.

Mulder had blown him. His mouth had been wrapped around his unprotected cock. He had slathered his saliva all around Skinner's groin.

God only knew whether Mulder was infected with anything.

Although he had realised that he was shutting the stable door after the horse had bolted, Skinner had still decided that there was no way in hell that Mulder's possibly diseased mouth was getting anywhere near him again. At least until he'd been tested. He certainly wasn't putting his cock anywhere near Mulder's ass.

His refusal to allow Mulder to touch him had only exacerbated Mulder's attempts to seduce him. The more he pushed Mulder away from him, the more frightened and desperate Mulder had become.

Mulder had interpreted Skinner's wariness as evidence that he was being unsatisfactory, that he would be abandoned, so he had taken every opportunity to show himself willing to be Skinner's slave once more.

The food that Skinner was allowing him to eat, together with the cessation of Krycek's continuous torture, wasn't sufficient to break though Mulder's haze of incomprehension. Yet, at some level, his head was clearer. Although he was still incapable of any complex thought, he instinctively reacted to the aura of protectiveness that exuded from the older man.

Despite Skinner's tendency to often lose patience with him, still Mulder was aware of an overall feeling of safety that had been long absent from his life. Unable to ratify his feelings psychologically, Mulder simply reacted on a primitive level to the way that Skinner provided for his physical needs, his body's survival instincts cutting in and swiftly forcing him to obsess on the need to keep Skinner happy with him.

For Skinner, Mulder's behaviour had been unbearable. After two months of abstinence, the sight of Mulder panting with need was almost more than he could deal with.

Only the fact that Mulder was obviously acting, had enabled Skinner to control himself. Since Mulder's limp cock and terrified eyes visibly belied the promise of his frequent sexual advances, Skinner had been too confused by Mulder's mixed signals to know how to respond.

When they had checked into a motel the night before, when weariness had finally forced Skinner to pull off the road, Mulder had immediately sunk to his hands and knees in the motel room, pulling up his t-shirt to reveal his emaciated buttocks and wriggling his ass invitingly.

When Skinner had failed to respond to the invitation, Mulder had become increasingly terrified, his thin frame trembling and flinching, as he mewled in fear like a beaten puppy.

Skinner had sunk onto the bed, ignoring Mulder's gyrations, and had stripped off his jacket and kicked off his shoes, desperate for the comfort of a hot shower. Mulder had crawled nervously to his feet and had laid his chin on Skinner's knees, his over-bright eyes staring pleadingly into Skinner's face.

Then Skinner had removed his shoulder harness and unholstered his weapon, spinning the barrel to empty the cartridges for safety. He wasn't willing to leave it loaded on the bedside table while he showered. Watching his actions, Mulder's eyes had grown huge, his full lower lip trembling in terror, then, with a look of sad resignation, he had reached his head forward and captured the barrel in his mouth.

The magnitude of Mulder's misunderstanding had literally taken Skinner's breath away.

Snatching the weapon hurriedly out of Mulder's mouth, Skinner hadn't known whether to scream abuse or kiss away Mulder's expression of bewildered pain.

Instead, unable to respond to Mulder's need in any other way, he had pulled the younger man over his lap and had spanked him.

Wary of Mulder's injuries, and finding the almost concave curve of Mulder's ass cheeks almost horrifying to touch, Skinner's palms had been unusually gentle, slapping the skin firmly enough to make Mulder squirm, but without any bruising force. Despite his whimpers of evident pleasure at Skinner's attentions, Mulder's cock had stubbornly refused to respond to the spanking. Yet, by the time Mulder's cheeks were flushed a hot pink, the look of complete desolation had been chased from Mulder's features and replaced by an expression of placidity.

He had curled happily around Skinner's feet as they watched a film on the Motels' cheap TV set, leaning his body closely against Skinner's legs just like he had so many times in the past.

The soft pressure of a cheekbone pressed into the top of his thigh, as Mulder dozed at his feet, had painfully brought home to Skinner just how much he had missed this simple pleasure.

Suddenly he had wondered why he had always denied how good it felt to simply BE with Mulder. Why the hell had he always felt the need to fight his own feelings? He had thought he was being strong, had believed that any show of affection would be perceived as a weakness.

Mulder's aura of helplessness had reminded him endlessly of the weekend after he had broken Mulder's jaw. Then, filled with guilt, he had spent the two days quietly with Mulder, taking care of him, loving him, justifying his behaviour to himself as being necessary only to hasten Mulder's recovery.

Yet, the more he remembered it, the more Mulder's current vulnerability had called to that quieter side of his personality and he had finally admitted to himself that the weekend had been one of the better times.

And since he was being honest with himself, hadn't the best time of all been right back at the beginning, those few months at Mulder's apartment, when he had felt welcome in Mulder's life. For a few months he had achieved an almost domestic bliss with Mulder as their mutual desires had coalesced.

He had fought it at the time. He had deliberately pushed Mulder away. Every time he had realised how 'comfortable' he was becoming with their arrangement, he had found himself abusing Mulder. Blaming and punishing him for his own growing feelings of affection.

It just had hurt. That was all. Hurt that he could feel this way towards another man. It had frightened him. It had threatened to unravel the image of himself that he had grown so comfortable with. His very identity had been threatened by his own confused feelings and so he had used Mulder as his literal whipping boy, to chase away the demons that whispered in his own soul.

Yet, even as he accepted his own guilt, his own mistakes, his anger towards Mulder had blossomed again.

Mulder had let him do it. Mulder could have stopped it, could have walked away, could have put his foot down and said "No." At any point after Skinner had released him from the Safe House, Mulder could have refused to continue the relationship.

But he hadn't, and in allowing Skinner to treat him that way he had encouraged the abuse. Just as he had gone to that fucking club in Miami and let strangers hurt him. Just as he had probably begged Krycek to abuse him too.

That was what really hurt Skinner. The fact that Mulder didn't seem to give a damn WHO used and abused him. Which meant that Mulder evidently didn't give a damn about him after all.

~~~

Skinner had let Mulder take a shower. Except the reality had been that he had grown so frustrated with trying to orchestrate Mulder's use of the soap and shampoo that he had ended up stripping off, climbing in and washing Mulder himself.

He had managed to keep an almost clinical detachment, right up to the moment when he had started to carefully soap the almost parchment thin skin between Mulder's shoulder blades. Then Mulder had arched his spine like a cat, had thrust his ass back against Skinner's groin and all of Skinner's resolutions had shattered.

He had found himself plunging mindlessly into the welcoming depths of Mulder's body, his cock burying itself to the hilt in one effortless thrust. Mulder's ass muscles had clenched greedily around his flesh, increasing the delicious friction of his deep strokes. The rushing water had drowned the sounds of Mulder's moans and his own grunts of satisfaction, but as Skinner had come, the bathroom had reverberated with the echoes of his roar.

He had been in the throes of orgasm before he even remembered that it wasn't safe to be inside Mulder's hot ass.

Mulder had been obviously ecstatic though, whimpering with excitement, rather than his earlier fear, and although he still hadn't responded physically to Skinner's fucking, a little of the dazed bewilderment in his eyes had been chased away, replaced by a more placid expression.

Though he had looked bewildered again when Skinner had finally climbed into bed and had patted the mattress to indicate that he was welcome to join him.

Hesitantly, Mulder had slid onto the mattress and had curled up at the foot of the bed, wrapping his body around Skinner's feet like a faithful hound. He had shivered in confused delight when Skinner had moved the duvet down so that it covered him too, and he had slept quietly and well.

Which was more than Skinner had, haunted as he was by his confused feelings towards Mulder not to mention a very real fear that he might now be harboring a viral infection.

So now, after another 15 hour drive, when they had finally reached home, Skinner was exhausted. It was gone 2am and he had to be at work later that morning. He couldn't wait to get Mulder safely ensconced in his OWN room and then finally catch up on a few hours of sleep in his own bed.

He was too busy trying to devise a way of restraining Mulder while he was out at work, without restricting his movement TOO much, to realise that someone was waiting in his apartment. Before he could react to his unwelcome guest, the door slammed behind him like a trap springing shut.

"What the fuck are YOU doing here?" he snarled, an audible vein of fear tingeing his aggressive words.

Mulder whimpered and dove to the floor, automatically assuming the anger was directed at him. He scrambled into position and closed his eyes in anticipation of a blow. Skinner barely noticed his reaction. His eyes were too firmly fixed on the intruder.

"I expected you earlier," Spender drawled, with a chilling smile.

"Obviously," Skinner snapped back.

The room was foggy with cigarette smoke and the saucer that he was using as an ashtray was overflowing with butt tips. Spender had evidently been waiting for some time.

"Poor Fox. You HAVE had a rough time, haven't you?" Spender murmured, his voice surprisingly soft as his sharp eyes drank in Mulder's battered body.

Skinner erupted at Spender's tone of what he assumed was pretended concern.

"How fucking dare you come here, let alone pretend you care about him, you bastard. You did this to him. You gave him to that fucking psychopath. Look at him. LOOK AT HIM!" Skinner roared, ripping Mulder's T-shirt off to reveal his blackened, emaciated frame and the garish tattoo. Despite his flesh being shriveled in terror, the word "Slut" was still cruelly evident.

Mulder began to sob and sway in terror from Skinner's outrage.

Completely ignoring Skinner's outburst, Spender merely clicked his fingers at Mulder.

"HEEL," he demanded firmly.

Before Skinner even understood what Spender was doing, Mulder scrambled desperately across the room on all fours and collapsed at Spender's feet.

"Good boy, Fox," Spender crooned, flashing a triumphant smirk at Skinner as he began to fondle Mulder's hair.

With an ecstatic sigh, Mulder collapsed against his legs, and thrust his head welcomingly into the caress. Even through the hazy fog of his own mind, he remembered the feel of these hands on his head and identified this man as his protector.

Skinner bellowed in outrage and surged forward, only to be frozen by Spender's quiet warning.

"I'm not alone," Spender announced coldly.

Skinner looked nervously around the apartment. He couldn't see or hear anyone, but he doubted that even Spender would have been arrogant enough to come here without protection.

Deciding on caution until he understood exactly what game Spender was playing, he shrugged with a pretence of casualness and seated himself in the armchair facing Spender, trying to ignore the boiling waves of jealousy that rose in him as Mulder writhed happily at Spender's feet.

"He remembers me," Spender grinned, and Skinner was left in no doubt that Spender was referring to a previous sexual situation.

The idea that Spender's filthy cock had touched Mulder made Skinner want to throw up, and the skin of his own groin crawled unpleasantly as he remembered his unprotected sex in the shower.

Forcing himself to appear calm, Skinner took off his glasses and made a performance of cleaning the lenses on the bottom of his t-shirt.

"What are you doing here, Spender?" he enquired mildly.

"That's not REALLY my name, you know," Spender replied casually.

"I don't give a fuck if your name is Adolf fucking Hitler," Skinner snarled, his fury rising out of control once more. "Say whatever you have come here to say, then get the fuck out of my life."

"Well, well, well. It's so enlightening to see you "out of uniform", so to speak. You're not quite the civilised Assistant Director of the FBI that you pretend, are you?" Spender mocked. "Then again, since we both know that you are a sick sadistic fuck whose idea of foreplay is chaining a claustrophobic man up in the dark and beating him senseless, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised by your language."

Skinner took a deep breath. He knew he had to be careful here. Spender had the power to reveal his secrets. Spender also had the power to take Mulder away again, and although he would have sworn, even five minutes ago, that Spender could take Mulder and be damned, every second that Spender's fingers roamed over Mulder's hair, the more Skinner was feeling too insanely jealous to give a fuck about his job or his reputation.

Mulder was HIS!

He snapped his fingers furiously.

"Heel, Fox," he barked.

Mulder's eyes shot open and filled with desperate hope. He began to scurry towards Skinner, only to be wrenched back by Spender's firm grip in his long, uncut hair.

"STAY," Spender snapped.

With a frightened yelp, Mulder sank back against Spender's leg, dropping his face so that he wouldn't see Skinner's furious expression.

Spender waited until Mulder relaxed again in obvious submission and then he resumed his petting.

"FOX, HEEL," Skinner roared.

This time, Mulder didn't even try to obey.

Spender gave a cool grin at Skinner's look of combined fury and hurt.

"Don't be angry with Fox. It's not his fault. It's yours," Spender mocked. "A natural submissive like Fox, automatically knows who is the Alpha in a situation. He instinctively understands the difference between rage and control. Control is what separates a Dom from a sadist, Skinner."

"What the hell makes you the godamned expert, anyway?" Skinner demanded.

"You mean besides the fact that, unlike you, I understand the difference between a D/s relationship and abuse?" Spender mocked. He raised his hands in a pacifying gesture as Skinner surged to his feet once more.

"I have known Fox for far longer than you have," Spender added more quietly, and Skinner slowly sank back into his chair, his brow furrowed.

"Exactly how long have you known him?" Skinner demanded suspiciously.

"All his life. Bill Mulder was 'useful' to our mutual acquaintances. Naturally, his family were also of interest to us," Spender replied with a shrug.

"You're telling me that Fox has always known who you are?"

"No-one knows who I am," Spender replied quellingly. "My identity is as changeable as the wind. Spender is NOT my name. This is NOT my face. I have appeared before in YOUR life Walter Skinner and I shall probably do so again, and just as you do not remember me now, so you will fail to recognise me then."

Skinner gave a small shudder at the idea of this dangerous chameleon lurking forever on the periphery of his life, faceless and deadly.

"I assume we are talking plastic surgery, rather than shape-shifting alien crap," he drawled in an attempt of nonchalance.

Spender grinned in obvious appreciation.

"Ah yes, the alien factor again," he chuckled. He carded his fingers gently through Mulder's long hair, the soft freshly-washed strands reminded him suddenly of Samantha.

She had had the same lustrous hair, he remembered. Exactly the same shade of brown. Not a dull colour at all, he suddenly realised, as his fingers played with the fine strands and they caught in the firelight and sparkled in multi-colored hues, ranging from honey to deep chestnut.

"Nothing is ever QUITE what it seems, is it?" he asked Skinner absently, as he tried to count how many different colors of hair made up the over-all impression that people simply called brown.

"What do you mean?" Skinner asked curiously.

Spender sighed and relaxed back in the chair. He felt Mulder adjust himself minutely and cuddle deeper into the warm comfort of his leg, and found his fingers moving to gently caress the nape of Mulder's bent head. Like a cat, Mulder began to purr, arching up into his fingers while snuggling his face deeper into Spenders thigh.

He could get used to this, Spender realised, and wondered whether to even bother trying to explain things to Skinner. Maybe he should just take Mulder himself.

He was seriously tempted by the idea. Sure, Mulder's presence would handicap him, would slow him down, would prevent him merely slipping ghost-like from identity to identity. Then again, he was getting older now, the identity of 'Spender' was beginning to fit him like a well-worn glove and he was loath to move on again anyway.

It was time for the young-bloods to take over, time for an old war-horse like him to retire to pasture maybe. The thought of stepping away from the limelight, of fading out of the echelons of power and finally finding the peace that had always eluded him, was suddenly tempting.

Yet, as his fingers inadvertently caught the sensitive spot behind Mulder's right ear, causing Mulder to writhe in sudden excitement against his leg, he understood the futility of his dream.

Mulder didn't just need to be stroked and loved, like an adored pet. Eventually, when he had recovered to whatever extent that he could, he would need someone who would fulfill his physical needs too. And Spender, a man who would cheerfully slit an infant's throat and feel no remorse, was still unable to even contemplate touching his own son sexually.

He sighed with regret. Fox really WAS an enchantingly sensual creature. He didn't understand his own hesitation, really. It wasn't as if anyone knew. Hell, even Mulder didn't know. So why did it matter?

Yet, somehow it did.

Besides, for whatever fucked up reason, Mulder did seem to genuinely want Skinner. If it hadn't been for that fact, Spender would have already handed Mulder over to Palmer.

He still might, come to think of it. If he couldn't somehow break through Skinner's self-absorbed, tunnel vision then he would take Mulder off him, this time for good.

"I asked what you meant," Skinner repeated impatiently.

"I was referring to Samantha Mulder's so-called abduction," Spender replied. It both relieved and worried him that Mulder didn't react to his words. There wasn't even a twitch of his skin to suggest that he understood a word of the conversation.

It made it easier to tell Skinner the truth, but nevertheless, it was a sad testament of how far from reality Mulder had traveled that he no longer even reacted to the name of his beloved sister. The sister who had started this whole damn tragic chain of events.

Skinner stiffened with interest. He also noticed that Mulder wasn't even listening, but he was too curious to finally hear the truth, or at least Spender's version of it, to give Mulder more than a passing thought.

"What DID happen to her?" he asked.

"Bill Mulder killed her, of course," Spender replied with a shrug. "He disposed of her body so well that it was never found. The police suspected foul play, but there was no reason to suspect Bill. He was a respected scientist with a flawless record. And Fox's tale of alien abduction at least convinced the authorities that it must have been a stranger who took her."

"So why the hell DID Fox say it was aliens?" Skinner demanded.

"Because he believed it. He was just a child in a badly dysfunctional family. It wasn't only Samantha that was abused, you understand. By the time Bill went too far and killed her, he had been regularly abusing both of them for years. Fox blamed himself for not being able to protect his little sister. He had already begun to actively encourage Bill to pay attention to him, in an attempt to stop Bill from hurting Samantha.

"He only stayed sane by escaping into fantasy. He spent most of his early childhood with his nose in a book, escaping into science-fiction and fantasy novels to avoid facing the reality of his life. When Bill killed Samantha, Fox was there. He witnessed it all and believed that it was his own fault for not keeping Bill sufficiently interested in him.

"Unable to deal with his own guilt, his mind built an elaborate fantasy. His father's face was replaced in his memory by the vision of some monstrous alien because he couldn't face the reality that it was his own father who was the monster responsible for Samantha's death. His own guilt remained though, only instead of blaming himself for letting Samantha die, it became guilt that he had let her be abducted."

"How the hell do you know this?" Skinner demanded.

"Bill Mulder worked for us, remember? We hardly needed one of our own to be involved in some tabloid alien abduction scandal. Bill confessed to killing his daughter, but couldn't explain why Fox was protecting him with his crazy story. So we asked Fox ourselves.

"The drugs we used were harmless, of course. We didn't want to damage the boy, just get to the truth. He never even remembered visiting our lab."

"And then you just gave him back to that bastard?" Skinner demanded.

"Bill Mulder was too necessary to our work at the time. Yes, we gave Fox back, but only after I personally supervised the surgical removal of Bill Mulder's balls. It was too late, though, to repair the psychological damage. Fox had been abused for so many years that all he seemed to understand was that after Samantha's 'abduction' his father never wanted to touch him anymore, and he assumed that Bill's sudden disinterest was a punishment.

"Like any child, he loved his father, Skinner. He adored him. That was the true reason for his fantasy of alien abduction. He simply couldn't deal with the idea that his own father was a killer and, besides, Fox believed that Samantha's death was his own fault anyway."

"Hang on a minute. I'm not saying I believe in the alien part, but Fox found evidence that Samantha WAS abducted," Skinner challenged.

"Of course he did," Spender replied easily. "As soon as it became obvious that Fox's fantasy was actually an asset, rather than a hindrance, we ensured that it would be fed. When it became inevitable that he would stumble on the evidence of the 'abductions', I myself planted the file about Samantha."

"Why?" Skinner asked.

"Because I didn't ever want him to remember the truth. People construct fantasies when their minds are unable to deal with what really happened. It was obvious that Fox couldn't handle his true memories and I didn't want to run the risk of Fox's mind snapping," Spender replied.

"Of course, it's too late to worry about that now, isn't it?" he added with a rueful chuckle, patting Mulder on the head affectionately.

"Let's say I believe you, despite the fact that there is absolutely no reason why I should accept that THIS truth is any more real than anything else you've ever told me. Why ARE you telling me this? Why are you involving yourself in this? What the hell has any of this got to do with you?" Skinner demanded. "And, more to the point, why are you telling these things to me?"

Spender took a deep drag of his cigarette, not bothering to hide his expression of distaste as he regarded Skinner. He completely disregarded Skinner's questions about his own involvement. He had come here to discuss Fox, not himself. Either Skinner would listen, and agree to his terms, or he would take Fox off him. There was no other possible outcome of this conversation, and the sooner Skinner understood that, the better for both of them.

"Firstly, AD Skinner, you are hardly in a position to act the innocent party here, so let's cut the bullshit. I came to collect my property, unless you agree to certain rules regarding your future conduct."

"Fox is NOT your property," Skinner growled, jumping to his feet, only to blink uncertainly as a red circle suddenly blossomed in front of his sternum. He looked nervously out of the window, into the dark windows of the building opposite, wondering which one hid the assassin whose sights were trained on his chest.

"I suggest you sit down again. Slowly. You don't want my associate to over-react do you? The trigger on his rifle is VERY sensitive, I understand," Spender warned softly.

Skinner slowly sank back into his chair, watching the red light follow him inexorably downwards, its deadly beam remaining just over his heart even when he resumed his former seated position.

"Now that I have your attention," Spender drawled, "let's cut to the chase. You have already come to the conclusion that Fox requires a "special" kind of relationship. This is not something that you are entirely to blame for. the potential has been there since Bill Mulder first taught a confused little boy that the price of love was pain.

"You are, however, responsible for awakening that need in him. That's what I am here to talk about. Responsibility. Your responsibility towards Fox."

Skinner flushed angrily.

"Responsibility? Is that what your pet Krycek was demonstrating?" he growled sarcastically.

"Alex disobeyed me. I am already addressing his 're-education' Skinner. You need not concern yourself with him. I am not here to talk about him, I am here to discuss YOU," Spender replied coolly. "The chain of events that have brought Fox to his current state cannot be undone. I cannot turn back time and make him as he was before you interfered.

"I can, however, ensure that his future life is better. Whether or not you are a part of that life, will be determined by your replies to me in the next few minutes. Don't waste them fighting me. You will lose."

"What do you want?" Skinner spat.

"I want you to learn what a true D/S relationship is about, Skinner," Spender replied with a cool grin.

"And how exactly do you propose doing that?" Skinner grunted sarcastically, although the idea sparked his interest. He knew that he couldn't possibly cope with Mulder in his current state and wasn't completely averse to having some assistance, although the idea of Spender's involvement made his skin crawl.

"Fox and I have a mutual acquaintance," Spender smirked, his grin ensuring that Skinner was in no doubt as to the nature of the relationship that Mulder had already 'enjoyed' with that acquaintance.

"His name is Palmer. He's a Dom. A REAL Dom. He is also a Doctor, which is probably even more important, considering the state Fox is in. Palmer is aware of the abuse that Fox has suffered at both your hands and Krycek's and has expressed his willingness to take him off your hands," Spender drawled.

"Fox is MINE," Skinner snarled.

"Is he?" Spender mocked, then his face lost its sardonic smile and twisted into a mask of disgust.

"Fox is MINE, Skinner. If you want him, you will have to earn him."

"What do you want me to do for you?" Skinner hissed, shuddering as he contemplated what manner of treachery Spender would demand of him.

"You misunderstand, Skinner. I am not referring to your work. Well, not at the moment. The price will be of a more personal nature," Spender laughed.

"What price?" Skinner demanded.

"Either Fox becomes Palmer's sub, or you do," Spender replied.

Skinner was half-way out of his chair before he remembered the red glow on his chest. He sank back down, his face so flushed with anger that it was almost as scarlet as the laser beam. The veins in his forehead pulsed visibly as his features contorted with outrage.

"You're out of your fucking mind," he snarled.

Spender just lit himself another cigarette, ignoring Skinner's fury.

"There is only one way in which you can keep your own sub, and that is by submitting to Palmer yourself," he said firmly.

"You ARE out of your fucking mind!" Skinner gasped. "There is no way in hell that I am doing it."

Spender shrugged and rose.

"Fine. The conversation is over then. I will take Fox to Palmer. You will never see him again."

"Wait," Skinner barked desperately.

"You have changed your mind?" Spender mocked.

"NO! I just want to understand why the hell you thought I would agree to this," Skinner demanded.

"Wrong question, Skinner. What you should be asking yourself is why did I even bother offering you the choice? Why did I tell you where Krycek was? Why didn't I simply retrieve him myself and leave you completely out of the loop?" Spender said.

"I already know the answers to THOSE questions," Skinner replied bitterly. "Now that Fox is of no further use to the Consortium himself, you want to use him to control me. You think that I will be your puppet. The price of your silence over my relationship with him will be my 'co--operation.'"

Spender shrugged.

"You are right, to an extent, of course. We could undoubtedly benefit from our knowledge of your particular sexual 'preferences'. However, we don't need any MORE evidence, Skinner. Let me assure you that we already have a satisfyingly thick file on your 'previous' relationship with Fox. I could destroy you now, if I chose to," Spender said, almost purring with satisfaction as Skinner's faced paled noticeably.

"So why the crap about this 'Palmer''," Skinner hissed, as his mind raced furiously to imagine what manner of evidence the Consortium could possibly hold on him.

"Because, despite all evidence to the contrary, I think that you COULD make Fox happy. Believe me in this, if in nothing else, the only person who really matters to me in this is Fox. You are dispensable, Skinner. You mean nothing to me. If I take Fox then the file is closed. I do not even care enough about you to destroy you," Spender mocked.

Skinner bristled angrily, even as his hammering heart slowed a little. Perhaps Spender WOULD just take Mulder and leave him untouched. Yet even as he realised and appreciated Spender's offer, the idea of Mulder leaving with Spender hurt like a stabbing knife wound in his chest.

"You still haven't explained about Palmer," he growled.

"Unless you take the opportunity to see the world from Fox's perspective, you will never be able to understand and respect him. Being a submissive isn't a BAD thing, Skinner. It is a choice, a way of life that can be mutually satisfying for both you and Fox.

"When Fox chose to be your slave, that was an honor for you, a responsibility you accepted. It shouldn't have demeaned him. YOU shouldn't have demeaned him. The very fact that you refuse to even contemplate trying the collar yourself, proves that you have no respect for him, or for any submissive for that matter. You think that it will 'un-man' you, which just proves how low your opinion of Fox is," Spender replied.

"Fox LIKES pain. I don't," Skinner snapped.

"But, unless you know how it feels, how can you possibly understand what you are doing? How can you judge how far is TOO far, if you have never felt the bite of the whip yourself? How can you understand the difference between a slave and a victim, if you don't understand WHY Fox desires to wear your collar? To be a good Dom, you have to be trained by a Dom. You have to understand BOTH sides of the relationship."

Skinner contemplated Spender's words. As much as he hated the other man, he couldn't deny that his words made a crazy kind of sense. Yet at the same time, every instinct in his body howled at him to refuse. It was bad enough that he had been forced to face his feelings for Mulder, without him taking another leap into this can of worms he had inadvertently opened.

Surely the very fact that Spender knew so much about the lifestyle proved that it was something unhealthy, something he should abhor. Just as he loathed Spender, so he hated the idea of participating in anything that Spender was so obviously knowledgeable about. Yet his curiosity was piqued enough for him to at least cautiously ask, "So, what exactly are you suggesting?"

"Monday through Saturday, you will be Fox's Dom. On Sundays, you will both visit a certain private club where Fox will have an opportunity to meet other submissives. His interaction with them will hopefully teach him the difference between servility and victimization. You, on the other hand, will belong to Palmer for the duration of your visit.

"Don't worry. Unlike you, Palmer DOES know what he is doing. He will not do anything dangerous, or even visible, to you. He won't prevent you from living a normal life the other six days of the week. And, to save Fox from further confusion, he will not witness your own slavery. He will, however, get the opportunity to meet other Doms at the club, and should he decide that one of them is more to his liking, then, when I am sure that he is capable of making the decision rationally, he will be permitted to choose to belong to them instead."

"You seriously expect me to put myself through this shit, just to keep him, when he might just leave me in the end, anyway?" Skinner asked incredulously.

"That's up to you, isn't it? It will take months before Fox is in any state to make a decision of that magnitude. In the meantime, you have the chance to learn to be a good Dom. If you can't hack it, if you fail to learn, then you lose him.

"It's completely up to you," Spender said, stubbing out his final cigarette and obviously preparing to leave.

Skinner's face went through a myriad of expressions as he chewed on Spender's words.

Could he do it?

Could he let another man control him? Humiliate him? Debase him?

No.

Yet, could he simply let Spender take Mulder away?

Spender was gently easing the t-shirt back over Mulder's head, showing a surprising amount of patience as he carefully guided each of Mulder's arms through the short sleeves. Skinner was struck suddenly by the difference between the way Spender was helping Mulder dress and the way he himself had so viciously ripped the garment off.

How could Spender be so gentle and yet not in anyway relinquish his complete aura of command?

Skinner's throat tightened as he saw the way that Mulder was gazing at Spender with obvious adoration.

Mulder had looked at him like that once.

Could he do it?

No.

Spender helped Mulder to his feet, cast a last mocking glare at Skinner's confused expression and headed towards the door, Mulder scurrying obediently at his heels. Spender dropped a business card on the telephone table as he left.

"You can reach me on this number until Saturday," he said. "After that, the number will be disconnected and it will be too late."

Skinner watched Spender open the door, saw Mulder turn and give him one last, confused look, and then the door closed behind them and he heard their footsteps fading into the distance.

Abruptly, the red laser winked out, leaving his chest curiously bare considering the raging pain that surged beneath its now unblemished surface.

~~~

Skinner stood in his office, staring with unseeing eyes out of the window. He had told Kim to cancel all of his appointments, completely disregarding her look of complete bemusement. He had been gone for four days, his desk was overflowing with files and telephone messages and his diary was already full with all the appointments that had been rescheduled due to his unexpected absence, without him canceling another day.

He didn't care. It didn't matter. None of it seemed to matter now, in the cold light of day.

It was strange really, he decided. Why had he managed to cope for all these weeks knowing that Mulder was with Krycek, only to fall apart now when Mulder was relatively 'safe'?

Oddly enough, he could even have coped with the idea of Mulder being dead. He would have grieved, admittedly, but then he would have moved on.

Sure, he hated Spender but that wasn't enough reason to explain his sense of despair. He hated Krycek too but had still managed to get on with his life, even in the knowledge that Mulder was with him, being used by him, being FUCKED by him.

So what was different? What had changed?

The truth was that he knew the answer. He just didn't want to face it.

The difference was that he wasn't helpless this time.

He COULD do something.

Just as he had leapt in his car the moment Spender had revealed Krycek's location, uncaring of what people thought of his sudden leave of absence. Just as he had burst through that motel room door without even a passing thought about his own safety.

He hadn't cared then about his job or his life. All that had mattered to him was getting Mulder back.

So why had he baulked at agreeing to Spender's terms? Was his pride REALLY worth more to him than his life? If he had been prepared to die to retrieve Mulder, would it really be so much more terrible to agree to Spender's crazy plan?

Then, WHY had he simply let Spender walk out of the door with Mulder?

Skinner leant his forehead onto the cool glass to try and ease the raging ache in his head. His temples were throbbing with the pressure of a headache so intense that he could barely think.

He didn't really want to think. Didn't want to face the truth.

The truth that he had let Mulder go because, in that moment, when Spender had been so gentle as he eased the t-shirt over Mulder's head, Skinner had finally come face to face with the fact that even a monster like Spender was more capable of treating Mulder with respect than he was.

Spender's words haunted him endlessly; " The very fact that you refuse to even contemplate trying the collar yourself, proves that you have no respect for him."

What was love without respect? Nothing.

Yeah, love.

What the fuck else could he call it when the idea of spending the rest of his life without Mulder made him want to fling the window open and swan dive through it? When the idea of another man touching Mulder's body made him feel physically sick. When every time he sat down he found his hand reaching down to feel Mulder's head and the vacancy at his feet felt like amputation?

He loved Fox Mulder.

It was a sick love, admittedly. But, then again, Mulder was hardly a candidate for a normal relationship either, was he?

"And whose fault is that?" he whispered to himself, and the answer made him flinch.

"Mine," he admitted finally. "It's my fault. It's my responsibility. FOX is my responsibility."

And he reached for the telephone.

The End

~~~

  
Archived: May 11, 2001 


End file.
